


Holding A Wolf By The Ears

by craftingdead



Category: The Crafting Dead
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Body Horror, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-07-05 04:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15856212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craftingdead/pseuds/craftingdead
Summary: Auribus Teneo Lupum/Holding a Wolf by the Ears; a Latin proverb to describe a situation where you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.A startling realization plunges the world into chaos, and, before he can realize it, Nick is forced into a life-or-death situation—quite literally. A world full of "walkers," as nerdbro's like to call them. Waking up in the morning is hard enough already, but waking up to the literal apocalypse right outside your front door is even worse. With every twist and flip, turn of the page, spilling of the ink, flick of the wrist, the world changes and mutates, even for an actual literal zombie fucking apocalypse.There's something going on behind the scenes. But the apocalypse has to start with someone, and Nick and Ghetto find themselves thrust into situations unneeded and unwanted. There's something wrong with the entire thing, with the people they interact with, but they need to keep themselves - and whoever they bring along with them - alive.God knows they don't wanna wake up one day and have it be their last, ending up lying down face-first in a ditch, their throat ripped out.(A rewrite/novelization of the Crafting Dead by SGCBarbierian.)





	1. A Series of Infectious Events

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small girl of about oh say, five or six, curved around a median, cheering while her sister watched with a particularly cross look on her face. She was pedaling as fast as her little legs would take her, head bobbing up and down in the air, nose stuck up, cheeks red, a proud glint in her eye.

NO ONE MOURNS THE WICKED.

No one sobs into their coats for the wicked; no one places a rose on the wicked’s grave; no one holds their head in their hands and weeps for the wicked.

That’s just common sense.

 _No one cares for the wicked_ , people scoff. They laugh to themselves on the street as a man gets pulled over and arrested. They talk about the girl from sophomore year—the pretty cheerleader everyone hated—who lost her baby in an accident. They whisper among themselves as the little boy on Jefferson’s Street who liked burning ants had been thrown out by his parents. _They have no one to go to_ , they gossip in public areas, in ear range of the so-called “wicked” they speak of. _We’ll go beautifully and surrounded by family, while they die in an alleyway!_

Oh, how wrong they were.

They’ll go out like anyone and everyone else. One minute they’ll be there, and the next they won’t. There’s nothing special about whether you die in a parking lot or a hospital or ditch. It’s brownie points for something that’ll you’ll never speak of or hear of again. No one mourns the wicked, and no one mourns the unremarkable.

And how unremarkable people are.

A small girl of about oh say,  five or six, curved around a median, cheering while her sister watched with a particularly cross look on her face. She was pedaling as fast as her little legs would take her, head bobbing up and down in the air, nose stuck up, cheeks red, a proud glint in her eye.

As she careened past the road-island again, her sister yelled at her. The sister was much, much older, yet none as observant. The little girl ignored her sister, instead choosing to hoot louder and wilder. Her sister sighed and sat onto the hot pavement, yelping as she scraped the edge of the road with her back. Her shirt ripped.

The little girl adjusted her bike—she had nearly bit it on the hard side of the road—and continued to circle around and around the neighborhood. A small, violet ribbon wrapped around her elbow loosened as she wrapped her arm around the handles of her bike. Blood leaked from it and was trickling down her arm and onto her dress, staining it a bright, crimson red. But she didn’t care. Why should she?

The man watching her, however, did care.

His house was tilting on the very end of the street, located near the long stretch of woods that sloped down the closer you got to them, a horrid incident from a misplaced explosion a year earlier. Since then, the neighborhood, and that house in particular’s reviews had been going down with no eyes on the sky. No one wanted to live in a war zone.

He peeked through the curtains, dusty from years of un-use, coughing as the dust billowed up in his face, but brushed it away as he resumed his position. The young girl continued to pedal up and down the road, oblivious to any danger she could put herself (or others) in. Or to the danger inside of her; the small infection growing inside of her.

It was easy to get it inside of her. She was so trusting, almost too trusting for someone that young. All he had to do was get her attention, and he did. Pulling her aside when her sister had been twirling her hair and talking to one of the neighbor boys, promising her candy and sweets and cool-looking ribbon and, if he was feeling up to it, a new bike, if she did this one _small_ thing for him. It was nothing, really!

She had been wary at first. Cautious of strangers, as she had been taught by her parents, but caved when he pointed out that hey, they were neighbors! There was nothing to fear, he claimed, smiling down at her and flashing up two thumbs-up when she finally nodded her tiny head in agreement. Like he’d thought; too trusting.  
  
He’d pulled out a ribbon from his back pocket—a violet one, he had noticed her wearing the color a lot—and promised that it would hide any injury that she might acquire. Then, before she could ponder on what he meant, the syringe hidden in his coat had been pulled out and the liquid inside injected into her veins.  
  
She’d cried out at first, but he managed to stifle it, putting a hand against her mouth as she whimpered. Then, he pulled out a bag of candy from seemingly nowhere and her eyes widened in astonishment. He promised her both the candy and the ribbon if she didn’t tell her sister or parents what had happened. When she frowned in response, he promised that the material in the syringe wasn’t anything bad, it was medicine! She had been sick lately, hadn’t she?

She gaped in awe, asking him how he knew that she’d been sick. He winked without a response and shoved the bag of candy into her tiny little hands.  
  
As she was preoccupied with the candy, he knelt down and wrapped the ribbon around her bleeding elbow, finishing it up with a neat little bow, and wiped off the blood that had been running down her arm with his thumb. She noticed, and thanked him for, as she put it, “fixing her boo-boo." He had smiled and waved her off, telling her to keep the candy hidden so her sister wouldn’t steal it, and off she went, grinning and shoving the candy into her inner coat pocket.

As he stepped back inside his house, the man groaned. He, honest to god, hated children with a passion. He hated even more of how predatory his actions seemed—despite hating children, he’d never hurt one (or anyone, to be frank) like that! He’s not a fucking monster—but it had to be done. It was confirmed when, with a small smile to himself, the girl became more exhausted and sluggish as she pedaled with all her might, dancing up and down the block on that sweet little bicycle.

Her parents would blame her for spending all day out in the sun; waggle their fingers and tell her off for not getting some water—or taking a break indoors! Then lead her up to bed, snatching the candy from her as she collapsed on her bed, and kiss her goodnight.

Completely missing the bow tucked into her elbow.

Personally, he thought the little candy idea was genius—that family was infamous for storing little bags of treats throughout their dwellings since both parents had terrible sweet tooths. They wouldn’t even question it! And by morning, when they would rouse their daughter, the wound would have patched itself up, and the ribbon would be tangled up in the sheets of their daughter's bed. The parents talked about how she twisted and turned in her bed, hell, she once managed to get her shirt off because of it!  
  
They should’ve learned to keep quiet, he thought to himself as the ribbon came completely off. Well, that wasn’t good, but it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. The scratch on her arm would hardly be noticeable, as the bleeding had almost stopped, but the man smiled to himself; the fun had only just begun.

As the little girl sailed past the median again, something in her… changed. She ran straight into the edge and went flying off of the bike, sailing over the handles, plummeting face-first into the dirt.

Her sister’s head shot up, and she sprinted over to where her little sibling was crying in the dirt, blood streaming from her nose and dribbling over the mouth (the man noted that she had lost a tooth a few days later), bruises blooming on her face and arms. The older one was swearing and stumbling over herself to get to her sister. The little-er one continued to wail at the top of her lungs. Her sister forced a hand over her mouth to stop the screaming, rubbing her temples, but pulled away as her sister sank her teeth into her skin.  
  
The older sister was now yelling at her little sister for biting her, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy swaying, feet stretched out in the dirt, arms raised, staring into nothingness. She didn’t snap out of it as her older sister waved a hand in front of her face (further away this time, so she wouldn’t get bit again), and barely flinched as her sister shoved her back into the dirt, muttering about how she was “weird as shit.”  
  
The man couldn’t have picked a better experimentee.

The older one backed away, rubbing her arm along the wound, bleeding profusely. Her sister spat blood out onto the ground, rubbing her mouth off with the side of her already bleeding arm.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you got your blood in me,” the sister muttered to herself.

Pebbles on the ground scattered as she ran back to the house to get help. The man chuckled to himself. He was surprised, to be honest, he hadn’t expected the girl to get someone as fast as she did. Seeing as her teeth were still stained with blood, she was guaranteed to injure her parents as well, and maybe some friends, if he was lucky enough.  
  
In fact, a small boy approached her just as the man was about to shut the curtains and walk away. He’d seen that boy before; scrawny, with curly brown hair and an obvious bucktooth. He went to the same elementary school as the little girl and hung out with her on occasions. He murmured something to her, and when she didn’t respond, held out his hand to help her up. She bit him as well but, unfortunately, managed to come to her senses and pull herself up after that, apologizing with tears streaming down her face.

 _A perfect child_ , as the neighbors would say. He flashed her a sheepish smile, and said something the man couldn’t make out—that boy had always been soft-spoken—and wiped away the blood from the bite on his trousers.

She took his hand, and he pulled with all his might. They got up.  
  
The parents of the little girl came barreling down to the two children, and that’s finally when the man dropped his curtains. He couldn’t afford to be seen in here, after all, if the little girl pointed out his house and he happened to be in the window, the parents would grow suspicious. He _technically_ didn’t live here, after all. The rotting house had been abandoned for years, yet he liked it. It was the perfect living space for someone like him, and the basement was huge. He had been amazed by the space left open after he lugged all his supplies in and sorted it out.

He liked this house. And this neighborhood. And this city. And he didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon, he still had plans.

The infection wouldn’t take over for months, at least, which was a disappointment, but he could wait. After all, that was his whole life—waiting. And if he had to wait till October or, hell, May of next year or so for his creation to come to light, so be it.

He hummed to himself. Those poor kids, so close to escaping school for the summer to be thrown into this. Oh, well.

Including that little girl, she truly was the best experimentee. If he was lucky, her body would start breaking down soon, and the more she spreads her infected blood around, the easier it will be for people to get infected. And, well, we all know how that can snowball. She was screaming at the top of her lungs (another sacrifice on his part, since that would keep him up all night), which was an annoying side effect.

But the first trial was never perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A Song Dedicated to the Memory of Stormy the Rabbit - Andrew Jackson Jihad ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqIv31kP4wg)
> 
> hi i'm charlie and welcome to jackass.
> 
> (i'm rewriting this to be a little more understandable and a little less asshole-able). this is a (practically) complete rewrite of the crafting dead series by sgcbarbierian! that means dialogue, characters interactions (besides former), events, hell, the entire plot could be changed/rewritten in some way possible. 
> 
> a lot of the way i perceive the characters may be outside of crafting dead "canon"! for example, how i see nick as a trans man/jess as a lesbian/shelby as indian. i do not see the characters from the series as their actors, so usually, actors =/= characters (i may take inspiration, however). if you don't like my adaptions? fuck off. if you think there's something wrong/inappropriate with the way im portraying a certain character? tell me! (though, i may not be as keen to listen for nonbinary/lesbian representation since i am both those things and i usually know what i'm doing!) 
> 
> right from the start: nick/shelby will NOT be canon in this, red does not die by nick's hand (and especially not in season 11!), i, personally, do not regard ANY of seasons 12 through 13 (and, on the occasion, 11) as canon and will talk about them as such.
> 
> songs will be added to the end of each chapter, as a personal thing i wanna do. i have an 8tracks (@CRAFTINGDEAD WOOO BABY) where i make character playlists and usually will give out my cd spotify playlists as well. i also have a pinterest board which is ask only. i am EXTREMELY attached to these characters, so that's a primary reason why i'm making this.
> 
> tumblr: @craftingdeadofficial (mcyt), @cielynx (main)  
> twitter: @roxquest


	2. The Last Rose of Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What the hell?” he muttered to himself. There was something outside. No, wait—someone.

EVERYTHING CAME IN firsts. First, the world slowly came into vision, a drab ceiling lazily swimming into his view. Had he been in a fight? Gotten knockout drunk? The world was spinning around him. The first thought was a mix of that and a quick memory of school, that he would be late if he didn’t get up soon before that was gone and all he was left with were the thoughts of fights and hangovers.

And that Nick was alone.

He didn’t know what that meant, or how it was possible, or even why he would be alone, but he knew it like the sea knew the sand: he was alone. Something had left him.

The second thing? The conditions he was in.

Hair fanned out around him, a dark brown mat resting on the carpeted floor like a crown. His hand wrapped around a soft, light object that was strewn across the room: a river of bright red fabric curving its way across the floor. The bright white ceiling glared down at him—a ceiling shouldn’t be that bright. His head was spinning and nausea was pooling in his stomach. He, on impulse, rose a hand and pressed it against his pounding head, squinting his eyes. Maybe he did get drunk last night. Where was he, anyway?

Nick didn’t know where he was.

A wave of panic washed over him, leaving him wide-eyed and breathing heavily, and as Nick tried to scramble up to a decent standing position, he proceeded to slam his head into the oak side table, who’s drawer had _conveniently_ been left open. He cussed into the empty room as black spots swarmed his vision and his stomach lurched.

He reached around for something to grab onto, and his hands met fabric as he pulled himself up to a small, twin-sized bed that was shoved into the corner, this time ducking _away_ from the open drawer. With him came the bright red scarf that was wrapped around his arm.

Nick glared out the large window that spread across the wall to his left, curtains swung wide open by whoever had been here last. They were ripped.

“What the hell?” he muttered to himself. There was something outside. No, wait—someone.

They were limping along the road, taking awkward steps and lurching forward in a way that had to be painful. Nick cringed. It let out a howl that he could hear from inside the house, surrounded by walls and glass. He shivered, a sudden cold washing over him.

Something was definitely going on. There was no way he would’ve gotten drunk and blacked out, he wasn’t that kind of person (was he?). Something else was going on.

His breath caught in his throat as more of the creatures lumbered onto the street with the other. They were forming a small pack, ten in total, but Nick could see more clambering at fences and gates that had been built in with several different houses around the block. But, thankfully, Nick couldn’t hear any strange sounds from inside this house, so he was safe—if these things even proved a threat.

“What the fuck?” he asked the emptiness of the small room he sat in, and to the open hall, he could see through the door, swinging back and forth on its hinges. A small breeze had been creeping through the house. Then he jolted up, realizing with a start that he was still in an unfamiliar house. _He had to get out of here_.

Or he needed to stop giving himself a goddamn aneurysm every time he stood up.

He rubbed his temples as another shot of dizziness rocked through his body. Placing a palm on the window, Nick slowly pulled himself up for once, leaning against the wall that the bed was resting against.

And, with one last look outside to the empty streets and creatures prowling them, he forced himself to the door, limping hard as a shock of pain shot up his left leg and made his knees buckle. With a small, but embarrassing, whimper of pain, Nick pushed his way through the open door.

The hallway looked surprisingly clean, compared to the bedroom he had left. A few candy and food wrappers littered here and there, a few that had been kicked under furniture (which, if he was being honest, looked to be placed where it would be easy to kick trash underneath). A few other doors were scattered around the hall, but only one of them, besides the one he came out of, was open. It was covered in green and red and yellow and looked like it hadn’t been touched for days and/or weeks and _god_ if it didn’t tug at heartstrings Nick didn’t know he had.

He stayed away from the door as he made his way, still limping, though not as anymore, towards the stairs on the opposite side of the tight hallway. Presumably, those stairs would lead to the first floor of the house. Nick saw part of the slanted roof through the skinny window that, thankfully, had proper curtains, and was facing _away_ from the sun.

He gripped the railings as he went down, knuckles white, shoving down bitter nausea that rose with every step, and entered the living room. It, like the rest of the house, looked like it hadn’t been touched in forever. Nick could see what looked like shattered glass scattered across the path to the back door. A window beside it had looked to be smashed in. He was suddenly aware that he was not wearing shoes. And, though it was pushed to the back of his mind quickly, that the scarf was still wrapped around his arm.

The broken glass was gathered in clumps—a few large pieces here, a few large pieces there. It looked intentional, and Nick could see dried red stains on the floor and on the edge of the glass.

A wave of nausea and panic rose up in him. Nick shook his head hard, attempting to push it down, along with the nasty thoughts that came with the pictures of stains on the floor. Why the hell was the window broken? That window was never left open (was it?).

Okay, something fuck-y was going on with his memory. He couldn’t remember his parents’ faces—hell, he couldn’t even remember if he had parents.

Fuck. Panic bubbled in his chest and up his throat. He gripped the edge of the sofa, his hands worn out from scratching against hard surfaces. Damn, he needed to stop doing that so often—s̵͐ͫͬ̈ͦ͢҉͈̲͎̜h͍̻͍͉̱͉̆̇̃ͨͅͅe̢̹͈̺̋̿̍̈́̒̎͘ was going to kick his ass if he fucked up his hands. That reminded him—hands. The scarf wrapped around his arm. Nick had to do something about that unless he wants it to eventually catch on something it shouldn’t

Nick wrapped the scarf around his neck. Nothing really changed when he did it, except for a familiar weight that settled against his chest. The feeling was normal, but he just couldn’t place it. Same with this house, these clothes, this situation as a whole—it was _so familiar_ , yet he had no idea why. It drove him insane.

_Your name is Nick—you think. You're an adult, probably, born... sometime in fall or winter… some year. You are in a strangely familiar house, and you are alone, and you have no idea what’s going on._

That’s what he knew. That’s all he knew; all he could remember from the scraps of memory he laced together.

Nick crept past the glass, careful to not step on it, and entered the front room. Though it was more like the same room, seeing as the kitchen, living, and front rooms all had open doorways. From here he could barely see into the kitchen. All that was visible was a counter and some shelves, nothing more.

The front room was narrow. Laid against the row in messy stacks were pairs of shoes, all disorganized and scattered about. Except for one; a pair of boots placed neatly beside the door. They looked to fit him, so he pulled them on, thankful he wouldn’t have any messy encounters with the glass by the back door any time soon.

Again, Nick felt a familiar tug but pushed it back. Maybe this was the house of a friend or family member or something of the sort.

He looked out the window. It was fogged up, dirt sprayed across it, yet he could just barely see through it. The weird creatures that had been outside earlier were gone, but he could still hear them groaning and moaning and howling. He shivered.

Nick reached towards the doorknob then hesitated, pulling it back. Should he really go out there, unarmed and, to his knowledge, devoid of any combat training and experience? The smart answer would be no, that he should go back inside and board up his room, to wait for someone to come back. The Nick answer would be yes, otherwise known as the dumbass answer, the complete and utter Buffoon answer.

He reached towards the doorknob again. Anxiety poured into his body and trickled down his throat. Swallowing hard, Nick, with a surge of something that was either courage or idiocy, gripped the doorknob tighter and swung it open.

The cold, damp February air hit his face in a rush. It brushed past him, leaving a small ringing noise banging and whistling in the back of his mind. Nick squinted his eyes against the sweeping wind. The sky was bright, the sun shining brightly in his face, the white clouds beside it doing nothing to help shield him from its glare. The groaning noise had been boosted to a hundred, leaving a haunting melody dancing with the _bang!_ of the wind in his mind.

And with a squeak of terror, Nick grabbed the doorknob, and, with all the force his body could muster, slammed it shut.

His legs crumpled underneath him.

* * *

THE WIND STILL RANG in his ears as Nick laid against the door, the hinges creaking and groaning. It had picked up, slamming against every surface of the house.

A faint “I told you so!” played on repeat in his head. Face devoid of color, nails digging into his hands hard enough to draw blood, breathing heavily through his nose. The anxious feeling that was coursing through Nick nearly threw him off balance—off of the strange, half-laying half-crouching position he had resumed after bolting back inside and locking the door.

Man, he was a pussy.

Another burst of wind rocked the glass of the door, a small window built into it. Nick shuddered. The groaning had faded away quite some time ago, maybe some thirty or forty minutes ago. Nick had to have been sitting here for at least an hour; the shining sun that had hung high in the sky was covered by gray clouds, casting the island (he was pretty sure it was called Seaport, or maybe that was just a place on the island) in a faint darkness.

Wind slammed against the window again, and Nick, instinctively, ducked his head. Whimpering softly, he retracted his nails, letting out a sigh of relief when the pain lessened. Blood dripped onto the carpet, adding onto what the glass had already spilled.

 _Calm down, Nick. You’re fine. Everything’s okay_ , he told himself. The phrase, like the rest of this fucking house, was strangely familiar. And, as much as Nick hated to admit, comforting. So, Nick pulled his head back up and forced himself to breathe. He focused on the pounding of his heart—which, in all honesty, probably wasn’t the best thing to be focusing on, seeing as it was going a million miles per hour—and breathed in and out. In and out.

The wind had started to die down by the time Nick could get a full breath without it hitching. (Another thirty or forty minutes, probably. Anxiety sure is one hell of a mood-ruiner, ain’t it?) Now that he had come to his senses, there was no way he wasn’t going to check out what the hell was going on outside. Y’know, like a dumbass.

Groaning and moaning picked up in the absence of the wind. He knew that it probably wasn’t the best option but hey, it was really the only option. Who knew if he could survive in this house alone? Did it even have food? Could those things get in? There were so many possibilities.

His arms hung heavy at his sides, elbows digging into the wood of the door. He really, really, really didn’t want to do this. But he had to. Taking a deep breath, Nick shut his eyes tight and opened them again, blinking away the spots that had formed. Time to go.

Pull himself up—check one. Steady yourself—two. Unlock the door, rest your palm on the handle, listen for groaning—three, four five. Nick pushed the door open. _Six_.

Nick peered over the edge of the cracked door; none of the… creatures… had noticed the door opening, too focused on something on the opposite side of the street. Nick could smell decay wafting over, and gagged. A small lump was hidden in some bushes, the body and face skewed from view. Nick felt bile rise in his throat and nearly ended up sprinting back inside to throw up. Instead, he pinched his nose, stretched out his limbs (as much as he could with one hand busy), took in another deep breath, and sprinted across the street.

Thankfully, none of the creatures noticed him. A few glanced over but then turned away again, apparently not interested by what they saw.

Small, eight-to-nine feet tall trees covered the yard and small grass patches in the sidewalk. Nick let out a sigh as he leaned against one of them. From here he could see most of the neighborhood—the pack down the street, a few wandering aimlessly in front of houses and cars, more than enough bodies, ripped to shreds.

The house behind him was painted a foul, yellow color. He could hear no noises emitting from it, so he guessed it would be safe. Probably.

He turned to it. The door was shut tight and the car was in the driveway. Maybe someone there could tell him what the hell was going on. There had to be someone there, right? He took a step towards it and the bushes rattled.

Out sprang one of the creatures, moaning loudly. And off he was, sprinting away from the front and rounding the corner to the back. Nick looked back, his chest heaving with every step he took.

He couldn’t see it.

He let out a sigh of relief.

And nearly slammed into a tall fence that blocked his path to the backyard.

Hearing more groans echo out from the street, Nick panicked and, in a moment of brilliant stupidity, hoisted himself up and over the fence. He dropped to the ground hard, and slammed back into the fence, a loose wire cutting into his cheek and ripping as he stumbled into the yard.

Nick could hear more of those creatures groaning, and the faint sound of shuffling towards the house could be heard. Fuck, that wasn’t good. What if they managed to break down the door and find their own way into the backyard—or worse, climb over the damn fence? Nick didn’t know what they were capable, but from the bodies on the street, he, quite frankly, didn’t _want_ to know.

He heard the fence groan and panicked. Nick didn’t want to risk looking back, risk seeing something he didn’t want to see, so he did the most logical thing: lose his goddamn mind. There was another fence to the side of him, shielding the backyard from another long street. On the opposite side of it, an abandoned Fire Station stood, the bright red standing out against the dry and gray world he had woken up to.

The fence groaned again. Nick wiped the blood off his face and made a very last minute decision as the fence groaned one last time and was ripped from the earth it was buried in: he took one last look at it—and those… creatures knocking it over—and booked it towards the other fence.

It screeched as he pulled himself over it, rust staining the steel. The Fire Station didn’t look much better; windows on every level were shattered, and the door was knocked in. But, thankfully for him, Nick seemed to have left the majority of those _things_ behind. But, if they could knock over one fence, they could knock over another. The Fire Station loomed over. He made a beeline for it.

Nick narrowly avoided a loose pole that was swinging from the top of the Station—it looked as though it had been ripped off. Sliding under the garage door, he coughed into his sweater sleeve as he kicked up dust. Why the hell was there so much dust?

Straightening himself up, thankfully, Nick couldn’t hear any of the creatures approaching. The Fire Station was large, a fire truck standing just inches away from his face. He really was lucky that he hadn’t slammed full-force into it in his desperate scramble under the garage door and out of view. On one wall, several different things were hung; a stand of things that looked like either axes, hatchets, or some weapon of the sort. Nick didn’t know why the people who ran this thing would hang up shit that like on the wall where anyone could grab ‘em but hey, he shouldn’t really complain. Have some respect for the (probably) dead, after all.

Something in the corner moved. Nick whipped his head back, searching the dark space that he’d previously missed. It was a cat. The cat glowered at him, then slinked back into a hole in the wall. Nick sighed.

His brain was yelling at him to stop freaking out again, but a wrenching feeling in his gut was telling him to get a weapon— _something_ to defend himself with. He couldn’t outrun these things forever, it argued. And, if he had any other trouble with cats, he could at least feel more stupid when he accidentally shot at it! A voice in his head laughed. Nick didn’t know where that thought came from.

A glint from the wall caught his eyes. A hatchet was hanging low on the ground, just out of reach for him normally. The “get a fucking weapon” was back in his head. Nick stretched out onto his toes and pulled it up and off of the stand it was hanging on, almost dropping it right onto his foot coming back down. It was heavier than he thought. Nick groaned to himself. Whatever brave-stupidity that had fueled him all the way here was depleting, leaving his muscles tense and him exhausted. How did the people in the books and movies do this?

Nick jumped as he heard a loud bang against the garage door. When he looked towards it, he could see the outline of feet shuffling underneath it and a small dent where the bang had presumably came from. He spun on his heels away from it and nearly slammed his head into the fire truck. He stumbled back, rubbing the non-existent wound on his head. Then turned to the rest of the Station.

The office door was completely smashed open, glass and wood splinters impaled into the wall and across the floor. A steady wind blew out of it. Despite being dressed in a heavy sweater, Nick shivered. Though it might’ve been from fear, not the chilly wind. Or maybe it had been from both? He couldn’t tell.

Thankfully, the monsters were focused on the garage door. Nick could see them through yet another shattered window. Since they were so focused on getting inside, they didn’t even see him slip out the back door and dart into the shadow of a large tree, low-hanging branches whipping his face as he escaped. One dug into the wound and he let out a cry.

Several heads whipped towards him as he covered his mouth with a hand, trying his hardest not to let out a squeak of terror. Maybe they were like T-Rex’s.

The group started lumbering towards him. Nope, definitely not like T-Rex’s.

He darted away from the area. On his way out, a few out stragglers looked to him but didn’t follow. Probably. Nick stopped paying attention after the first group—too preoccupied with getting the fuck out of dodge.

Nick neared a larger street, leading down a city block. Tall apartment and office buildings were packed side by side and provided absolutely no cover for Nick. He tried his hardest to keep to the shadows and out of the main view, and failed horribly. There were a few of those creatures over here, and he could hear them as they prowled throughout the island (city?).

He nervously clutched the ax in his hands, holding it close to his chest, as he walked through the abandoned city. The wind had completely died down, leaving only the groans of those things playing hauntingly in the background, and even those were starting to fade. The world was quiet. There were no other people to wave at him as they usually did whenever he passed through this block (they did?) unless you counted those… creatures—but there was no way that those things were human. Even if they were, they’d lost all trace of their humanity. They were alien.

Speaking of being human—small hunger pangs in his stomach were getting progressively more annoying as he dragged himself through this city. Nick groaned to himself—the first trace of anything human-like that he had seen or heard for quite some time—as most of the stores had been closed and secured with locks and boards over the windows, and there was no way he was retracing his steps back home. No way.

Every time he saw what looked to be a decently stocked and accessible store, he was shut down by strange noises by inside. And the quiet guilt that gnawed at his stomach whenever he thought of stealing anything.

His hopes peaked as he noticed a small convenience store just down the street. The lights inside flickered on and off and there was absolutely zero blood in front of it, for once!

Nick made a mad dash for it. One of the doors was knocked off its frame, the glass inside leaving a solid zero chance of stepping inside of. The other was still balanced, and most of the glass was gone, leaving a large hole in the middle of it. Nick stepped through, minding the sharp edges and bracing himself on a wall when he got in.

No need to slit something important open when he’d already come this far.

Most of the shelves looked thoroughly looted, for whatever reason, but Nick could spot what looked to be a few granola bars and packs of chips resting on them.

There were other things as well, but those were stored inside of refrigerators and sprayed out behind counters. Nick wasn’t going to risk reaching over to grab something and instead getting pulled over like some cheap horror movie. There were a lot of things he wouldn’t risk.

He snatched one of the granola bars off of its shelf. The packaging was undisturbed, as were the rest of the bars and chips. That was a good sign. Nick shoved a couple of bars into his jean pockets, reminding himself to check through the rest of the store later if he could remember, as he wouldn’t risk looting it further. The sound of groans and moans echoed around him and Nick couldn’t tell if they came from the front or back, so he wouldn’t risk it. As the bars hung heavy in his pockets, Nick could hear a voice in the back of his head saying _those last forever!_ It was distinctively feminine and reminded him of something, but that wasn’t important now.

Nick swung himself out of the store and ran straight into one of the creatures. He let out a shriek of alarm as he stumbled back, pressing into the jagged edges of the store’s doors.

The creature swiveled its head to look at him, gnarled teeth showing through a gap in its cheek and lunged, snarling. Nick didn’t realize what he was doing until he was doing it, his arms raising the ax and swinging towards the creature. Hard. It passed through the creatures decomposing flesh, a gross squelching sound playing in his ears as the monster stopped, twitched, and then fell to the ground, its head skittering off.

Nick felt like he was gonna throw up. He stood there, frozen for a second, then broke out into a run, turning the corner hard and sprinting down the next street and the next. He didn’t stop until he was several yards away from the body, then stopped.

His heart was in his throat and he bent over, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. It’s face flashed in his head, gnarled teeth, ripped cheek, the whole deal. Holy… holy fuck. _Holy fuck I just killed someone or something holy FUCK_ —

Nick was on the edge of some different street, facing the ocean. Tears burned in his eyes as he desperately tried to wipe them away, to no avail. His breathing fanned out into panic; his body trembling. In his arm, he still clutched the ax, and he wanted to throw it as far as fucking possible and never see it again. Unless another creature attacked him again. If another incident like that happened again, he’d be fucked without it. And besides, they’re not human, right? There’s absolutely no way. AND it was self-defense, so like, he won. Hundred percent completely justified reason to decapitate a person… thing… creature… man.

As his breathing slowed back down and tears stopped threatening to spill out, Nick turned to the ocean. The calm waves rolled against the sand, sending a light breeze across the shore and up to him. It was comforting and strangely familiar, like everything else in this damn city was.

He stretched out his back and sighed.

Alright. This world he resided in currently was fucked, and even if it was a horrible nightmare I’d still be fucked, but he can manage this. He can handle this! Those things were pretty easy to get away from, and if no one else approached him, he’d be fine.

Nick barely had any time to relax on that thought, leaning against the nearest building and letting his muscles relax and eyes flutter shut for just a moment before he was snapped out of his daze, violently. The explicit sound of feet hitting the ground came from just around the corner, and he had to stop himself from groaning. Of course, the moment he started coping with everything, something else went wrong

He straightened up and peered around the corner. In his hands he still clutched the ax—even after all his grief, he didn’t throw it away. He was smarter than that. He always had been. The scarf around his neck fanned out behind him, leaving a dead target for anyone who might’ve been walking up. But that didn’t matter.

The street still wasn’t easy to make out, so with an annoyed huff that only he could hear, Nick leaned forward again, tipping on the edge of his toes to be able to see. Damn, he really was that short.

Nothing. Nick let out a sigh of relief and was about to fall back onto his heels with another footstep sounded and something slowly began to come into view.

Someone was standing in the middle of the street.

He was tall—much, _much_ taller than Nick, he could tell even from over here—and dark-skinned, dark-haired, and, if he had to guess, dark-eyed. (Was that a term?) Over his shoulder, a rifle or some other sort of long, very scary looking gun was slung, bouncing against his back, steadily slowing down. On his frame were a pair of dark jeans, a white t-shirt, stained with what had to be blood. Man, that was fucked up. Over his bloodied t-shirt was a long, dark jacket— _also_ stained with blood. Nick wouldn’t be surprised if the backpack hanging off one shoulder was also stained with blood. He carried himself with a confidence Nick could only dream to achieve and was looking pretty nonchalant for a guy covered in blood and a mere twenty, thirty feet away from another shambling creature.

The man was on a path to intercept with Nick but he, quite frankly, would prefer for that not to happen. Not happen at all. It’s not that he didn’t want to interact with people—he kinda did, but like, at a later time that wasn’t now and _especially_ wasn’t thirty minutes after he woke up from a god-knows-how-long coma and wasn’t with someone who looked like he could kill him at a moments notice.

With the ax balanced in his hand, Nick took a step backward. Then another. Then another. Making a path away from this man. Careful, careful, careful. Panic was brewing in his chest—no, that’s only gonna end up bad for him. Careful, careful, careful.

He stepped back, and right onto a loose patch of gravel. It made a crunching noise that sounded louder than life. Nick cringed.

The man froze, and his head shot up to meet Nick’s gaze. His face contoured in shock, then disbelief, then confusion, as they stared at each other.

From this distance, they weren’t much. In a normal world, this exchange would’ve been normal: they would’ve nodded to each other and left, maybe exchanged a few words, a few laughs. But that wasn’t this world. He took a step towards Nick, then another, his hands held out in front of him, bent at the waist.

Nick’s ax was digging into his chest, the hard, wood frame pressing against him. The man’s gaze trailed down.

The edges of his mouth turned down. He reeled back, eyes narrowing and a now prominent scowl on his face. Within the second, he had grabbed the gun off of his back, swinging it up and over. He raised the barrel and pointed it at Nick, one foot forward, with a… determined? Knowing? Annoyed? expression on his face. Nick let his arm drop, the ax swinging to the side of him, and put his own hand forward, stepping back a few more feet. His heel sunk into the gravel.

A second passed. Two.

“Who the fuck are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Someone come and, someone come and save my life_   
>  _Maybe I'll sleep when I am dead but now it's like the night is taking sides_   
>  _And all the worries that occupy the back of my mind_   
>  _Could it be, this misery will suffice_
> 
> [Sleeping Sickness - City and Colour](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rU7WPVcLmQ)


	3. "He majored in biology."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What the fuck,” Nick said.

_“Who the fuck are you?”_

NICK'S EYES WIDENED, stepping back onto the small tree branch, breaking it into smaller pieces. He let out a little whimper, holding his hands (and, unfortunately, the ax) out in front of him in a defensive stance. The guy was still training his gun on him.

“Well?” he demanded.

Nick flinched. “I, uh, I—I don’t mean any harm,” he sputtered, leaning away from the man. His tongue was glued to the top of his mouth, preventing him from speaking. Nick’s stomach was churning with worry and discomfort and he felt the need to throw up. What kind of bitch was he to get this kind of reaction from _seeing_ someone in the _street?_

“Sure you don’t,” the guy retorted, tapping his fingers against the trigger. There was a way he kept hitting them, harder and harder each time, that put Nick on edge. “Of course, you, like everyone else, means zero harm. Again, who the fuck are you, and what the fuck do you want?”

“For you not to shoot me?” Nick said, taking another step backward. He nearly lost his footing in the gravel, sliding his foot across the asphalt to get a better grip. The guy snickered.

“That’s what they all want. What the fuck do you _actually_ want? You look like you could barely take walker, much less me—but those kinds of people you watch out for. So, what the fuck do you want and, for the third goddamn time, who are you?”

“I—I don’t want anything. Why the fuck would you think I want anything? Except for you to not shoot me, of course, since I’m pretty sure no one wants that.”

That response honestly seemed to surprise the guy. He took a step back, tilting his head to the side curiously. The barrel of his gun slumped downwards as he looked Nick up and down, weighing his options, as anxiety gnawed at Nick’s chest, and he shuffled from foot to foot uncomfortably, arms crossed over his chest (ax to the side, pointed away from him).

He raised his gun again hesitantly, his eyes lit up with some unknown thoughts and speculations. He had decidedly decided to act on whatever they were, as he fixed Nick with an icy stare and barked, “Well then, if you don’t want that to happen, then drop your weapons. And, if you do that, I’ll lower mine. Got it?” Nick replied with a nod forwards, dropping his ax on the asphalt next to him, his heart pounding in his chest.

The guy was still glaring at him. For extra measure, Nick slipped his foot under the ax, scooping it up, and kicked it away a good few feet.

“Oh, wow, you actually did it. That’s. Never happened before okay…,” the guy said, looking down at him in surprise.

Nick cocked his head to the side. If that had never happened before, why did that guy even try to persuade him to put his “weapons” down? He was currently running a hand through his hair, the other balancing the gun.

“Alright, okay, this has never happened before,” the guy repeated, pulling his hand out of his hair.

“Of course it hasn’t, you said that already.”

He ignored Nick, still wrapped up in his own mind. Nick could practically see the gears turning in them. And then, swinging his gun back over his shoulder, he said, “Okay, dude, whatever your name is, thanks for getting rid of your weapon—what the hell is your name, anyway?”

“If it’s never happened before, why did you bother asking me to put my weapons down?”

The guy snorted. “Dude, I asked for your name.”

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Nick asked instead of giving him his name. The guy responded with a groan and annoyed look. Nick’s face heated up, uncomfortably looking away as the guy cleared his throat.

“That’s another question, not your name.”

“Nick,” he said, reluctantly looking back. The guy nodded at him. Nick was going to politely ignore the fact that he had just had a gun and annoyed stare trained on him and instead decide to focus on the fact that holy shit he found another person! The only life form he’d seen—other than himself, that cat, and, if they counted, the creatures in the streets—for what seemed like hours! (In reality, it had barely been thirty minutes, but Nick wasn’t counting. He was.)

“Okay, dude, I’m Ghetto,” the guy, “Ghetto,” said, going to hold out his hand for a handshake, then pulled it back. He rubbed the back of his head in slight embarrassment since they had to be good fifteen-to-twenty feet apart.

“Ghetto? That really your name?” Nick blurted out.

Ghetto glared at him. Nick might’ve been imagining it, but he swore he saw his hand inching towards the gun again. He coughed awkwardly into his sweater sleeve. “Sorry, shouldn’t pry. Ignore what I just said, you have your business."

After a moment, Ghetto dropped his look—thankfully, since Nick was still on edge from the zombie incident earlier, and didn’t want the only other human he’d seen be pissed at him. “Alright then, Nick, so, if I may ask, where the _fuck_ did you come from?”

That threw him for a loop. “W-what?”

“Listen, I’ve been out here on my on for like, a week, after the evacuation and shit, and I’ve seen no one. Nada. Zero. Then you come with a fucking ax stumbling around like you’d just seen a ghost, bleeding to top it off. So, where in the fucking _hell_ did you come from?” Nick stared, wide-eyed, at Ghetto. _He’d been out here a week?!_

“What the fuck it’s been a week?” Nick said. “I can barely remember what I was doing a week ago. How has this happened in a week?” he added when Ghetto gave him a weird look.

“Well, technically it’s been a week and a half, but—” he cut him off with a loud “what the FUCK?!” and Ghetto winced, pointing at his ear. “Dude, I get that you might be fucked up right now, but did you really have to destroy my sense of hearing?” he said. Nick could feel guilt chewing at him and blushed deeper, flustered.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “It’s just… what the fuck.”

“Dude, are you gonna start crying?” Ghetto asked, running his hand through his hair again. “Jesus Christ, you totally are—I promise it’s not as bad as it looks, it being this fucking situation we’re in. It just takes a while to get used too and yeah your loved ones might be dead but—wait, shit I shouldn’t say that either how the fuck do you comfort a crying stranger?”

“I’m not crying!” Nick said, wiping away tears. “I’m just confused. And very tired.”

“Okay, sure, then how about let's start from the beginning. What the fuck happened to you?” Ghetto said. He sounded curious, leaning in slightly with his ear tilted towards Nick.

“You want to know about me?”

“In my defense, you’re the first person I’ve come across that hasn’t wanted to shoot me with a gun. Or yell at me then shoot me with a gun. People in this city aren’t the nicest of people”—Ghetto chuckled as he said it, rolling his eyes and Nick felt awkward for not getting anything of what he meant—"and yet you seem to have an interesting story and no gun, so I’ll bite. What happened to you?”

“Um, okay,” Nick responded. It had suddenly dawned on him how weird the situation was. “I, uh, woke up in some random house about a half hour or more ago I think? I don’t know,” he confessed. Ghetto stared at him. “I don’t know what’s going on. Or where I am. Or anything. I can’t remember anything.”

“Really? No idea? Absolutely none?” There was a sarcastic tone in his voice that made Nick bristle.

Nick crossed his arms over his chest, averting his gaze away from Ghetto’s. An uncomfortable heat was rising in his cheeks—god, he was really out of the loop. The messed up, gun-wielding loop. “No, I really—I have no fucking idea, nothing...” Nick rambled, the words catching in his throat, threatening to spill out in one scream. His chest felt tight, the world seemed to spin, everything crashing down on him at once. _What the hell was going on what the hell was going on what the hell was going on—_

One deep breath. Two deep breaths. Ghetto waited across from him, tapping his foot impatiently and fidgeting with his hands. Nick’s face burned. He was in the middle of what could possibly be the apocalypse, and he was embarrassing himself in front of the only other person he’d seen. Typical.

“You serious? You remember nothing?” Ghetto asked. “Like, I get not realizing that the world has gone to hell if you’re like, a hermit or something, but nothing? Absolutely nada? Zero?”

Nick looked away. His face was an inferno. A literal inferno. He would physically burn if he had to say anything else. His heart was in his throat, the only thing he’d be able to get out was a choked sob. Not good for someone who was acting like they just hadn’t been crying.

After Ghetto realized that Nick wouldn’t be talking anymore, he sighed. “Alright, pick up your ax and let’s go. If you wanna come with me, of course, seeing as I was just pointing a gun at you. I would appreciate some help looting and whatnot—need more supplies. I haven’t been out for a while and of _course_ , the first time I come out I immediately skip the stores and run face-first into another person—”

While he was talking, Nick had headed over to where he had kicked the ax, picked it up, and walked over to Ghetto, who had then noticed that Nick was, in fact, coming with him. “Guess you’re coming with me, then. Take this, that ax won’t do you much good if we find a horde—those motherfuckers are tough in crowds. If you don’t know how to shoot a gun I’ll teach you later.”

Ghetto pressed a small pistol into Nick’s other hand and began briskly walking down the street. Nick had to run to catch up with him, and then jog slightly to keep pace. Goddamn you, tall people.

The wind whistled overhead. Breezing in and out of buildings, the scraps of broken glass being ripped free of their origin, scattered throughout the city in packs. Nick stepped into one of them, wincing as the sound of glass being crashed reached his ears. Ghetto didn’t even react, pushing further into the broken city. After that, Nick avoided the patches, instead veering around them as Ghetto barreled forward.

Some man sat in a corner, dark blood drenching his clothes. He raised his head to look at the two of them and groaned softly, blood gurgling in his throat. His hand was pressed against a wound on his stomach, hands pushing it in to keep his insides from falling out. As Nick froze, he smiled, eyes glazed and far, far away from here. Then, with a shudder and sigh, his hand fell free, head slumping to the side as the man fell onto the pavement, dead to the world. Blood crept out from underneath him. Nick felt a hand on his shoulder and was pushed forward, nearly stumbling over his feet as Ghetto continued on. He looked tired.

“The fuck was that?” Nick whispered, turning around to look at the man again. He was so, so still. A bird cawed as it flew down from the sky, perching on the body and gazing at the creatures slowly emerging from the shadows. A gunshot scared it away and the creatures fell back, dropping as the bird’s calls faded into the gray sky.

Ghetto turned away, face towards the ground. Powerlines swayed above head. “Finding a dead body is more common than finding an undead one, a walker, for the most part. That might just be here, though.” Walker. That’s what they were called.

“I saw several… bodies back from where I came from.”

“Lucky you.”

Now that he had a name to go along with the creatures, the _walkers_ , Nick shivered; the death of it was so much more painful. Burying an ax in one's head would be so much more painful. The pistol felt heavy in his hand.

The world was quiet, Nick was too. They trudged on down the dusty street.

Ghetto kept switching his rifle and backpack from shoulder to shoulder anxiously, always resting a hand on what Nick could make out to be a small knife tucked into the pocket of his jeans, the handle sticking out, a metallic glint hurting his eyes every time the light hit just right. Always prepared, always paranoid, especially after seeing that man. But what could would a knife do against a walker? Unless it wasn’t intended for walkers.

Nick shook that idea out of his head and continued on walking. A small convenience store leered at them from the corner of the street, fluorescent lights inside flickering on and off as they approached. Ghetto stopped him with a hand to the chest and peered inside, rifle pointed to the ground, safety off. He then gestured for Nick to follow him and strolled in. It would’ve been a pretty casual sight if it wasn’t for the fact that he was holding a loaded gun.

“Hey, could you stay by the door while I loot this thing? Don’t want any of those motherfuckers sneaking up when I have my back turned,” Ghetto asked him, already sweeping down the aisles and through the shelves for supplies. Nick frowned.

“Uh, how should I? I barely know how to wield a...” Nick weighed it in his hand “...a two, three-pound ax, and I sure as hell can’t shoot a gun.”

“Guess that’s something you’re gonna have to learn—alright, if anything, human or not, approaches, just yell really loudly and I’ll come running. So might other walkers but it’s alright because I have really strong guns.” His voice was muffled by the shelves that filled the store and blocked Ghetto from his view, but Nick could practically hear the grin on his face. He couldn’t tell if Ghetto was referring to the fact that he had multiple powerful guns on him or that he was strong enough to take them on in a fight.

Ghetto returned to the front a little while later. Nick, having been on edge for the few minutes he was out of sight, breathed a sigh of relief as the taller man flashed him a thumbs-up, backpack slightly larger than it had been before. Nick couldn’t help but feel guilty at the idea of looting stores, but when he worded that concern to Ghetto all he got back was laughter.

A question gnawed at him, slithering up his throat like bile and by the time he and Ghetto had reached the next turn, the only thing filling the silence being their breathing and the creaks and groans of the infected city he had finally worked up the courage to blurt out, “What’s going on?”

Ghetto raised an eyebrow at him. And spread out his arms, gesturing to all around them: the ruined city; the blood covering the walls and ground; the occasional shadow of a walker or… something else passing through a window. Nick huffed. “I’m being serious, what the fuck is going on?”

They stopped as Ghetto looked at him for a long time, eyes darting from the wound on his cheek to his head to meeting his eyes.

“Didya hit your head or something recently? Like, I thought you were pulling the ‘naive teenager’ role to like, lull me into a false sense of security or something and I fully went along with it because hey, what the fuck, but do you really not know what the hell’s going on?” Ghetto finally asked, confused. “Because I can fill you in on what’s going on recently or something if you really need me to. Hundo-percent positive you didn’t hit your head walking around out there?”

“I’m positive I didn’t hit my head. I, uh, kind of woke up like this? Not knowing anything, I mean. And, yeah, that’d be nice, if you could.”

“Alright, uh, well _fuck_ , man, if you’d told me this before I could’ve prepared a speech or some shit.” By then, Ghetto had picked up the pace again, the two of them walking along as he explained things. Where they were going, Nick didn’t know, but Ghetto seemed to have things all figured out. “Umm, weird ass disease thing pops up sometime around May, the world doesn’t give a shit about it, then shit hits the fan about a week ago and now we’re stuck here with no communications to the outside world. At least, that’s what the news stations said before they went out. Except for that last part. Basically, the world is fucked up now.”

The next street they stepped onto was full of walkers. Ghetto pushed Nick behind him as he took point and slowly but surely began to trickle down their numbers, the ones unlucky enough to be within his range falling to the ground, unmoving. The ones away from him had enough sense to wander off before his bullets could reach them.

Several cars were obscuring his view, so Nick couldn’t see out onto the rest of the street, but as Ghetto slapped a new magazine into his gun he said, frowning, “Zero communications? Absolutely none?”

“Bingo.”

“Are you sure?” Nick argued as Ghetto and he pushed their way through the maze of cars. “Like, a hundred percent sure—”

“Look, if there’s some way to communicate with the mainland, I sure as hell don’t know it. Besides, why would you want to know what’s going on there if things are bad _here_. It must be total anarchy there.” As Ghetto pushed some debris out of the way and entered back onto the street, he paused and then held out a hand to stop Nick from continuing. “What the fuck—Alright, stay back, dude.”

His curiosity got the best of him so Nick ignored him, ducking underneath Ghetto’s outstretched arm. “What is it—” He stopped dead.

“What the fuck,” Nick said.

A line of cars separated the two of them from the rest of the street. Tires slowly slipping off of hoods and trunks, paint jobs getting fucked to the next dimension,

Ghetto groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, I remember this. Some people were talking about blocking off this street from the rest of the city. Thought they were joking. Apparently, that wasn’t true.”

A walker was stuck in one of the cars. It was desperately gnawing at a half-broken window, trying to get out. A shot rang out from behind him and it fell dead. Nick turned back. Ghetto was staring at it, awestruck.

“What’s wrong?”

“I knew that dude. We went to some of the same classes. He majored in biology. Jesus Christ, I thought the line of cars was the worst of our problems.”

“Worst of our problems?” Nick asked, cocking his head to the side.

Ghetto’s groan was replaced by a sigh. “Since we’re doing the ‘stickin’ together’ deal, I was trying to hunt down my old Apartment. Haven’t been there in days—problem with security—but I wanted to see if the coast was clear,” he said. Nick opened his mouth to say something but Ghetto continued, “You saying ‘tired’ was an understatement. Dude, no offense, but you look like you’re about to drop dead. Got any places we could stay?”

Nick thought about it. He was surprised he and Ghetto were actually staying together, seeing as he had just assumed Ghetto was going to help him get supplies than abandon him to do his own gig, but apparently, that assumption was incorrect.

“I have that house I mentioned before—well, I don’t know if it’s my house or if I even lived there before the apocalypse. But I guess it’s a start,” Nick said. “You sure you want to stay with me? I can barely hold my own and can’t even shoot a gun. It seems like fuckin’ everyone can do that these days.

Nick winced as Ghetto laughed. “I’m sure, dude. No offense, yet again, but there’s absolutely no way you could hurt me. Like you said, you can barely hold your own and can’t even shoot again. I’ve never really seen myself as the most generous person, but you look like you could need some help on your own. Ten bucks, I leave you here, you die within the next day so it’s either that or I stay and help you.”

“Umm… alright. Though, I’m not sure I really need help—”

“My _ass_!”

“—I’d probably just have held up in my house and stayed there until I either get hungry or bored. But I appreciate the help,” Nick responded. Ghetto gave him a double thumbs up.

“Alright, glad we figured that out! It’s me and you dude, we’re in this together!” Ghetto swung the gun back off of his back, wrapping a finger around the trigger. “Don’t worry, I won’t let any walkers kick your ass.”

Nick smiled uncomfortably. He didn’t like the idea of getting his ass kicked by walkers. “Thanks, I guess.”

“No problemo!” Ghetto said cheerfully. “So, any idea how to get back to the house? How did you even get here in the first place?”

“Hopped a fence and ripped my cheek open,” Nick said. As he mentioned the fence part, Ghetto snickered, hastily trying to hide it with a cough after Nick glared at him.

“Was wondering where you got that from. Didn’t want to say anything and jinx you responding about being bitten or some shit. Does it hurt?”

“Yeah,” Nick responded. “It hurts like a bitch.”

Ghetto laughed this time, loud and booming. “All the better to get back quicker. Please tell me you remember how to get back to this house?

“Yeah... I… I think I do. There was a convenience store a ways back that I remembered passing through. If we can find that, I could probably… track down the house from there.”

“Hell yeah!” Ghetto exclaimed, accidentally pulling the trigger and scaring some birds that had been perched around, blood staining their beaks. It made Nick shiver, a stark comparison to the smile Ghetto had on his face and carelessness with the gun he accidentally shot. “Fuck, probably shouldn’t do that. At least we’ll be gone before the walkers show up.”

“Yeah,” Nick said. “At least we’ll be gone.” And they set off.

Ghetto was right; his gunshots had summoned the walkers, and they crept out of the alleyways, rearing back with Ghetto open fired and cut down their numbers. Night had begun to fall, and they were hurrying back to the house as quickly as they could, despite the fact that Nick knew nothing about the area (that he could remember). They passed the convenience store.

“This it?” Ghetto asked.

“Yeah, yeah it is,” Nick said. “Pretty sure I know the way back from here.”

Ghetto nodded at him. Nick felt guilt eat at him as they sped past it, the body of the walker he’d killed sprawled across the wall. Its mouth was hanging open, rotten teeth. A bird flew down at pecked at one of its eyes. Nick shuddered.

The walkers that had previously surrounded the Fire Station were gone, but they left their mark as huge indents in the garage door. Littered across the… whatever it was made of. Ghetto gave it a surprised look and nervous laugh. “Damn, those fuckers really leave their mark on everything, huh?”

They crossed through the backyard that Nick had gone through earlier. Ghetto gestured to the back door and, with a little help from Nick, successfully broke it down and passed through the house _instead_ of traveling over the opposite fence. The original one was knocked down, anyway.

After being freaked the fuck out by a walker, Ghetto decided to be a White Knight towards the scared-and-probably-traumatized shitless Nick and take out as many walkers as he could before the ammo ran out, the number of shots ringing out throughout the street getting lower and lower.

They shut and locked the door and, after noticing it, moved a small table next to the door in front of it, only sweating lightly when they got it in place. Ghetto went to go explore the rest of the house, almost running into the side of the island located in the middle of the kitchen.

“Watch out, there’s some broken glass scattered around the back door,” Nick warned as Ghetto began to approach that area. He stopped for a second, then swiped some of the bigger pieces away with the side of his shoe. Sliding open the door, he stepped over the leftover glass (they would have to clean that later), and whistled in appreciation.

“Dude, your fence is tall as hell! We could totally get some like, barbed wire type shit up there to prevent any walkers from scaling it—if they even can!” Nick bit back the urge to yell back that it wasn’t his house, and instead opted for sticking his hand out the door in a classic thumbs-up. Timeless.

As Ghetto stumbled back inside, shutting the door behind him, he stretched out his arms in a wide arc as he yawned, popping his back. Nick was rubbing his eyes, exhaustion pulling at him. It had been an interesting day.

“Christ, I’m tired as fuck. Anywhere we could hold up for the night?” Ghetto asked, cracking his knuckles. Nick cringed hard and Ghetto did it again, louder this time.

“I think there’s a room or two upstairs. Unless you wanna sleep on the couch,” Nick said, gesturing to said couch. Ghetto took one look at it and shook his head. Some of the bloody glass was impaled into the side, filling spilling out of the rips in the side.

“I think I’m gooood.” Ghetto took a step towards the stairs, closer to Nick. “But, you sure you wanna sleep on the same floor as a possible creep you just met? I could always like, drag a bed downstairs or something. Pretty sure I’m strong enough to do that.”

Nick smiled at him, thankful for his thoughtfulness. Pretty decent dude for someone who had just had a gun pointed at him. “Nah, it’s fine. I can—I can deal, it won’t bother me. I’ll probably forget that you’re on the same floor in about five minutes.”

“If you’re sure…” Nick cut him off.

“I’m sure, don’t worry. I feel like you should be more scared of me doing anything than me being uncomfortable being on the same floor as you.”

“You? Doing anything? Don’t make me laugh, you look like you’d fall over if a light breeze blew on you,” Ghetto snorted.

Nick glowered at him. “You say that like you know me.”

“Woah, calm down edgelord. And besides, it’s true. I could knock you over with a hard enough shove—hell, maybe even a pat on the back!”

“It’s not too late to deny you upstairs privilege.”

“Yes, it is.”

Nick scowled, but couldn’t hold it for long. It was true, and both he and Ghetto knew it. His scowl melted off into a defeated grin and he gestured Ghetto towards him. The latter grinned and hurried over, kicking the table further in front of the door as he went.

Being ahead of Ghetto, Nick reached the second story first. The room from earlier was still open; of course, it was, since who would be around to close it? It gave him a strange feeling so he shut it as gently as possible, making sure Ghetto wouldn’t hear it closing. Nick was glad he didn’t seem to notice the sound—hopefully. He didn’t react to it, so Nick was probably in the clear. Probably.

“Shit, dude, when was the last time you cleaned?” Ghetto said as he reached the top.

“I’ve been in a coma for a week, remember?” Nick retorted. Ghetto put his hands up in a “ _sorry, sorry_ ” type gesture but the grin that returned to his face immediately disproved that. Nick huffed and turned to face the rooms.

“How about you take the one near the stairs, and I take this one?” Nick gestured to the door that he had woken up in and Ghetto nodded, already walking over to the door on the opposite side of the hall. The door was opened and revealed a quite bland looking room. It had probably been used as a spare bedroom by whoever had previously lived here—or just straight up ignored, one of the two.

“You know, tomorrow, I’m gonna teach you how to shoot a gun!” Ghetto yelled as Nick shut his door.

“Have fun with that!” Nick yelled back with a fake cheerfulness mixing into his voice. Ghetto laughed again and then went silent.

As Nick laid down on his bed, with his gun and ax on the floor next to it, he could feel his eyes drooping, yet sleep wouldn’t come. The image of the walker charging him and the bloodied street would probably prevent him from getting any rest. Cold air had been leaking in from downstairs, filling out the upper floor and he shivered.

“‘Night, Nick.” He heard Ghetto say it, muffled by the walls.

“‘Night, Ghetto,” Nick responded. He didn’t even know if Ghetto could hear it—it was the softest voice he’d used so far. He could barely hear it in his own mouth. His stomach churned, the walker rushing at him again. Ghetto in the room over comforted him, but just barely. He still was practically a stranger, after all.

In the middle of the night, he was woken by a dream of a red-haired girl smiling and waving to him as she walked out of a familiar house and swung the door shut behind him. His eyes filled with hot tears, and he rubbed them away with his sweater sleeve. The dream quickly faded from his mind—to quickly, he thought, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Besides, it was just a dream.

On that thought, Nick rolled onto his side and fell back asleep. The curtains brushed against his face as he slept. Without the groans of the walkers outside, who had probably left a while ago, the world was quiet. He didn’t dream this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Don't know the first thing about who you are_   
>  _My heart is waiting, taken in from the start_   
>  _If we don't go now, we won't get very far_   
>  _Don't know the first thing about who you are_
> 
> [No No No - Beirut](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfE156KQBa0)   
> 


	4. Stay and Defend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Okay, I see my demonstrations are not helping, here— “

_“Dude, dude, stop it—that’s absolutely not how you do it.”_

NICK LET OUT a loud groan as Ghetto swooped down upon him, criticizing yet again the way he was "holding himself" and "pointing the gun in the wrong direction, you're going to blow your own foot off." A few days ago, Ghetto wouldn’t have bothered, too focused on the zombies before them. Now, he had one thing to focus on and it was the fact that Nick wasn’t “positioning himself correcting.”

He already longed for the times that Ghetto would leave Nick to guard or stay back as he looted a store or took out some zombies. Now that Ghetto had finally come to his senses, and realized they had enough supplies to last at least a week, he’d brought it upon himself to make sure Nick knew how to fucking destroy a zombie. Or, in this case, the fences paint job. Why couldn’t he have been focused on securing the little house they took shelter in, like a good, normal zombie apocalypse survivor?

Now, because of Ghetto’s totally shitty NIck’s-totally-not-responsible-at-all decision-making, he was standing in the backyard of the house they had set up as their base of operations, and watched as Ghetto demonstrated the “proper” way to shoot a gun and, on occasion, positioned Nick himself. Nick always had to resist an urge to slam down on his foot with the heel of his boots whenever Ghetto neared him.

“Remember firing stance, dude. Position your feet even with your shoulders, lead foot pointed towards the target—no, not like that, here, let me show you—” Nick wanted to scream. At the top of his lungs.

Ghetto was a good guy, really. He was excellent with weapons and protection, knew his way around the city, and could do the heavy lifting that Nick couldn’t. But he was also insufferable when he chose to be. Like right now, as he adjusted Nick’s arm and wrists to better aim at the target he had carved into the fence—which had taken at least an hour, and he was equally insufferable than! He had to yell at Nick every few minutes to stop fiddling with the gun, which, to be honest, was kind of Nick’s fault.

“I’m not gonna be focusing on the goddamn firing stance when I’m sprinting away from walkers,” Nick hissed under his breath. Then he felt kind of guilty since Ghetto was trying his hardest to teach him, and Nick, instead, was being a piece of shit.

“Yeah, but you _are_ going to be focused on actually hitting them,so if you learn the goddamn basics it gets a whole lot easier to, you know, hit your target, unlike what you’ve been doing for the past 30 minutes,” Ghetto shot back, passing behind him. Nick no longer felt guilty. It would be so easy to rear back and hit Ghetto in the face with the back of his gun. _So easy_.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry for not getting your gun lessons, but you’re a shitty teacher. How do you even know how to shoot a gun?”

Ghetto was getting impatient, it showed in his tone: “God damn it, dude, loosen your fucking grip,” he snapped at him, _again_. Nick gripped the gun tighter, resisting the urge to mutter an innuendo back. Ghetto was talking, _again_ , and Nick strained to pay attention, his head racing with all the other things he could currently be doing instead of this shit.

“Okay, I see my demonstrations are not helping, here— “

Nick blinked in surprise. Ghetto turned back to him, dropping his own gun on the small, wooden table they’d dragged out a few days later to make more space in the house. Wrapping his arms around Nick, he reached around, mimicking his arm movement. Nick’s back curved against his chest, adjusting his body to the way Ghetto was standing—in the way he had been demonstrating for a few hours now. Clever bastard.

Nick’s head was resting against Ghetto’s chest, feeling the light, concentrated breathing as his arm was forced towards the target, aiming to the middle of it. Nearly missing his own breath, heat rose to Nick’s cheek quickly. Embarrassment flooded his system, nearly making him drop his gun in the process.

Breath on his neck, Ghetto pulled Nick closer to him, making him stumble in surprise. Muttering something about “being too stiff” to himself, Nick could feel Ghetto adjusting their stance, both fingers on the trigger, right foot forward brushing against Nick’s own. He nearly missed what Ghetto said next, too focused on evening out his breathing to pay proper attention.

“Fingers on the trigger and _keep them there,_  no need to mess around with my shitty paint job. Firm grip—not that tight, your knuckles are turning white. Eyes on the target and”—his breath was hot on Nick’s cheek—” _fire_!”

The recoil slammed into the back of Nick’s palm, almost slipping through his fingers as the bullet shredded through the fence, widening the hole that Ghetto’s shots slowly had been forming. Regaining his grip, and with light encouragement from Ghetto, he shot a few more rounds into the fence, destroying the lower rings of the sloppy target and landing one, impressive shot into the middle. The shot rang in his ears, and despite the fact that newer guns’ had been specifically designed to be more quiet, as Ghetto had told him, it was still louder than he thought it would be.

Ghetto backed away from Nick, leaving him to almost drop the gun with his shaking hands. “That’s good enough for now. We shouldn’t do anything else to attract more walkers, or we might have some troubles.” He gestured to the wrecked fence. He was right, Nick could already hear them approaching.

“Good job destroying the fence, dude!” Nick snorted, feeling a pang of disappointment as Ghetto turned his gaze from him, lowering the quick grin, thumbs-up and okay gesture he’d given Nick after the last comment.

Ghetto crouched down by the ruined fence, seeing as he was _several inches taller_ than it originally, and peered through the hole. “The moment we get this fixed up, you gotta try out a rifle, man. Let’s see if you accidentally hit me this time!” Ghetto said.

Sighing in relief, Nick slumped down, rolling his neck back and stretching out his arms. Being forced in the same position for an hour sucks major ass. At least Ghetto got to move around after every time he shot. Nick was barely allowed to twitch his fingers, scared he’d fuck up the position and hit something he shouldn’t have. Like Ghetto. Or a window.

“If you don’t shut up, next time I’ll hit you on purpose,” Nick muttered, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was exhausted. The tension was rooted deep in his muscles, and Nick swore he’d never stand straight again.

Ghetto, on the other hand, was leaning against the fence, elbows hooking over it and shooting Nick a cheeky grin.

“You okay there, dude? Need to lie down? Have a nap?” he mocked.

“I’m fine,” Nick said. Against the voices in his head yelling at him, Nick stretched his arms over his head and rubbed his eyes. He could practically feel the sympathetic-yet-mocking look on Ghetto’s face that he liked to give him _as often as he could_ . He was tired, but he didn’t need a fucking nap, _Ghetto_.

He must’ve said that last part out loud. Ghetto barked out a laugh. Nick glared at him, rubbing his eyes again when they started to water.

An affectionate eye roll later he was wringing his hands together and waiting for Ghetto to talk again. He didn’t seem to want to, instead peering over the fence with a bored expression, the lines from his dumb grins still etched onto his face. With a start, Nick realized that he was probably waiting for _him_ to talk. Shit.

“Thanks for teaching me, even though I _was_ a piece of shit through the majority of the ‘lesson.’” Ghetto laughed again, turning to look at Nick.

“Yeah, you have been a piece of shit,” Ghetto said, “but you can’t take all of the blame. I may be a great teacher, but not all can understand quite as well. I should’ve done a better job teaching you how to shoot fuckers.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you're suuuch a great teacher,” Nick bit back.

Ghetto pulled his rifle into his hands and aimed it over the fence. “I am! You got enough shots off to attract walkers! Those pieces of shit only come when you _don’t_ want them, and yet, this time, they were attracted to the shots. That totally proves that I’m a great teacher. Everyone wants to experience my learning.”

His original attitude about the undead, the one that Ghetto (and Nick, to be honest) had displayed on the first day they met, the sympathetic, slightly annoyed attitude, had been washed away. This new one, the one he’d developed during the long days spent looting and hunkering down in the house with Nick, was completely different. Nick couldn’t blame him for laughing at the way the walkers stumbled and fell now, even though in retrospect it may be a little cruel. It was easier than sitting around in silence and watching the world around them get torn apart.

But, looking around the backyard, Nick didn’t see the world getting torn apart. He saw a small backyard, Ghetto picking off walkers and hooting whenever he got a headshot on the first try, and absolutely nothing to do.

The fence would need to be fixed up, but Ghetto was over there. Nick didn’t want to have to duck underneath him every time he nailed up a board, that would distract them both. Nick was the only one allowed to break windows with his gun since he got the “dumbass who didn’t know how to shoot” role on day one. Ghetto was experienced, and Nick wasn’t about to take away his bragging rights just like that.

Light glared down at them from the sun. It had to be one of the coldest days they had dealt with in the pack couple of days, but there it was, shining with all its glaring glory. Nick squinted his eyes and looked away from it. No need to go blind.

But that left him with nothing else to do. He could go back inside, but he was still shaken up by the walkers and bodies and didn’t exactly like being alone. Which proved to be a problem while sleeping, but at least he was only conscious for a few minutes before nodding off.

“So… I was wondering…,” Nick began, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“So you were,” Ghetto said, not really paying attention.

The silence between the two was heavy and quite uncomfortable. It had been hard adjusting to their status of being on their own to actually living with a human being. The stress-fueled jokes and banter they had between each other had washed away and with it any sense of comfort and relievement that came with finding another person who didn’t want to bite your head off. Now, things between them fluctuated between light and joking and awkward as hell.

“Where—how did you even learn how to shoot a gun?” Nick asked

“What are we, playing twenty questions now?” Ghetto said. “Because I’m down if you’re down. Question one: what’s your favorite color. If you don’t wanna do that we can skip straight to two, which is what’s your favorite animal.”

“No, I don’t—sorry,” Nick grumbled, “just was wondering.”

Ghetto laughed, totally not rubbing a bump on his head from where he’d slammed into the fence leaning down to patronizingly look at Nick. “No, no—tell me about your _dad_ let’s have an _entire chat_ about this. What’s your tragic backstory—someone killed one of your family members and now you’re on a path for revenge, I knew it.”

“You’re still pissed at me, aren’t you.”

“Why would you ever think that?”

“You are,” Nick said. “You so are. Don’t even try and deny it, you so totally are and I’m so totally regretting my past decisions.”

Ghetto loomed over Nick. Well, loomed as well as he could while trying to hide what was obviously a shit-eating grin. “I may be pissed, but you’re the damn one trying to guilt trip me!”

“I am not guilt tripping you!”

“Yes you are—you saying you’re not guilt tripping me is just the icing on top of the guilt-tripping cake!” Ghetto rubbed the bridge of his nose with a finger, hiding a snort underneath his attempted hiding of a shit-eating grin (he was failing that one, but Nick would give him points for effort).

A gunshot echoed through the air.

Both of their heads shot up, suddenly alert. Ghetto grabbed his gun from the ground, and held it up, aiming at the opposite side of the backyard. Nick fumbled with, then dropped his own gun. Ghetto stared intensely at the way the gunshot sounded. Nick moved away from it, staring wide-eyed and afraid.

The gunshot was coming from quite a ways away and might’ve not even been a gunshot—maybe just a car alarm or something going off. Maybe one of the zombies got creative and threw themselves or one of the others off of a building, and they landed on like, a glass window or something—

Another gunshot sounded, this one much closer. Ghetto raised his gun even further, aiming at the noise, and taking careful steps forward. Nick could feel the fence pressing into his back; they had, unintentionally, switched places. With one swift motion, Ghetto turned the safety off. The click seemed to be as loud as a gunshot, ringing through Nick’s ears for seconds to minutes after the event had occurred.

Bang, bang, bang—this one sounded to be a few houses away—then complete silence. Not even groans of the walkers could be heard from their spot, hiding away in a backyard, one terrified and one pretending not to. Silence.

“What the…,” Nick whispered, voice trailing off.

Ghetto lowered his gun. Nick let his body relax. They stood still for a long time. Another gunshot echoed throughout the city, but it was much, much further away, near the harbor. But they didn’t hear that one; that shot was a secret, ready to be unlocked at the drop of a hat. The fact couldn’t be ignored: there was someone else in this city.

Ghetto turned to look at Nick. “Let’s go back inside.”

Nick nodded back at him, trembling. He quickly scrambled up next to Ghetto and snatched up the pistol he dropped earlier. Ghetto swung his rifle back onto his back, turned, and headed back to the fence. He carefully lowered the board, covering the holes Nick had blasted into the wood. Then jerked his head towards the house. He couldn’t tell Nick twice.

Nick winced at the noise that the back door made, a loud creaking noise that pierced through the air like a knife. He was inside and dropping the pistol on the long dining table in the hall before Ghetto could blink, and was locking the door as he headed inside on his trail.

He took a spot next to the front-door side window, opening it just a smidge. He leaned against it and sighed, breathing in the fresh air, attempting to replace the anxiety that was eating at him. Ghetto was up and pacing around the room anxiously.

“Who the hell was that?” Ghetto hissed to himself.

Nick glanced at him. “I don’t know,” he said, “I have no idea—maybe, uh, maybe someone else was in the area? Passing through from, I don’t know, further up the island? Trying to escape?”

“Why the hell would anyone want to come down here?” Ghetto said. “It’s a fuckin’ infestation down here, in the city! Anyone would be a dumbass to wanna come down here! Uh, that wasn’t already here,” he added, prompted by the Look Nick gave him. “Anyone who was here before isn’t really to blame, heh. Probably—probably just passing through, if they aren’t a fucking idiot.”

Whatever comfortable—whatever joking feeling the two had around each other was pushed to the very back of their minds.

“You sure we aren’t idiots?”

“I’m sure. We haven’t gotten our throats slit yet or brains shot out yet, haven’t we?”

Nick stared down at his hands, relishing in the silence. There was no groan of zombies to interrupt it, for once, and Nick drank it in hungrily. Ghetto was staring at him, though he jerked his head away a little too quickly when Nick turned to meet his gaze. Looking guiltily out the window, he said, “Sorry. That was… that was a little morbid.

Nick blinked. “A _little_ morbid?”

“A lot morbid.” Ghetto let the window drop shut. Nick winced when it hit the wood of its frame. “They might if they continue to reveal their spot to everyone in the next five miles every few seconds. Hasn’t that fuck got a suppressor or something? They’ll need one if they’re going to survive… wherever they are, away from us. Hope they don’t come back.”

“But what if they come back?” Nick pressed. “What would we do then? They got… they got awfully close, and what if they aren’t as friendly as you were when i first met you.”

“Aren’t you a mood killer?” Ghetto said.

“You were the one who was being morbid as all hell earlier. Besides, what if they do come back? What do we do then?”

Ghetto gazed at him for a long time. Two whole-ass seconds passed before he spoke again, “Then we’ll just have to deal with them if they come back and are… hostile. I’ve been out here long enough, I’m not gonna let one fucker with a shotgun and shitty attitude blast me off of this. Ghetto’s good, thank you very much!”

“Alright,” Nick replied. He could already feel the tension building in the house and wanted it to be gone as quickly as possible. They had _just_ been joking around a few minutes before. And, besides, he wasn’t exactly the best in these kinds of situations. What was he kidding, he was _extremely_ bad in these kinds of situations. And by situations, Nick meant literally anything that had to do with leaving the safety of their house. He still wasn’t used to the world as it was now. “But… what if it’s a confrontation? We can’t just try and ‘deal with them’ without a fight.”

“ _Fuck_ , I didn’t even think about that,” Ghetto said, his face falling. “Uh, how about we figure that out when it happens.”

“How about I pretend to be a poor, lost, damsel-in-distress, extremely attractive twink and distract them while you sneak up behind and take them out?” Nick suggested, attempting to lighten the mood.

“So, basically, you be the beauty while I'm the brains and brawns. What if they’re into hunks?”

Nick patted Ghetto’s arm reassuringly. “We’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.” He sniffed.

“If I’m remembering correctly, the docks have like, barbed wire and shit from a while back, when some farm animals kept fucking shit up further down the island so if we really want to defend ourselves, I’ll try and hunt some of that down, tomorrow or something,” he said. “Maybe while I’m down there I’ll find someone who truly appreciates my hunk self.”

Nick snorted. “Good luck with that, dude. Have fun at the docks.”

* * *

NICK WOKE UP TO a pounding headache splitting his head in half. Light filtered through his ripped curtains, the bright, November sun blinding his eyes. Lifting a sleepy hand up, he pressed the side of it to his forehead, blocking out as much light as he could. He let out an annoyed growl. The sun was still beating down on him, no matter how hard he tried to block it out (and, in the process, smother himself) with his hand and then a pillow.

Eyes darting around, Nick searched the room for anything that could’ve disturbed his sleep. Despite, you know, the horrid headache throwing a rager in his brain. Nothing. Was it Ghetto calling to him...?

Groaning, Nick rolled out of bed. He let out a small “oof” as he landed ungracefully on the ground, pain raking up his skull. His bare knees were frozen on the cold carpet. November had been merciless, as the night before had proven, and the house never seemed to be warm, despite the sun shining down relentlessly; however, it was still better than outside.

The pain in his head was so bad that Nick had to stabilize himself on the bedside table. Who’d know how long it would take for him to manage to get dressed—or, hell, get himself downstairs and to a bottle of water. Or some aspirin, if they had any.

Stumbling his way around the room, Nick nearly tripped over a rolled-up shirt on the ground, his life flashing before his very eyes as his foot caught and then, thank god, stabled itself again, But the trip did bring him to the senses.

And he noticed a few things.

The first thing he noticed, despite the pain, was that no moans and groans could be heard from outside. The usual noises that the zombies made were gone and replaced with a bitter silence. A wrong kind of silence. The silence that told you, _Hey, you’re fucked_!

Nick remembered a night like this. Or he didn’t—maybe he just came up with it on the spot. But he saw a tall boy, about eighteen or nineteen, resting his head against a roof. The tiles were slanted and painted an ugly orange color, white paint seeping into the cracks from a tipped-over paint bucket. Some of it was in the boy’s hair, but he didn’t mind. He was still grinning, his curly brown hair falling into a heavily freckled face as he pointed out into the distance.

The city was Seaport, Nick knew that much. The familiar skyscrapers littered the horizon, lights blinking on and off like fireflies. Large trees and shrubbery covered paths and roads leading up to this house, high up in the hills. The golden hills, people had called them, not for the color, however—it was for the people that lived there, their kind souls helping everyone they could. Happy glances, booming laughter, gold eyes gazing fondly at Nick, a brotherly glance glittering in them.

Whatever the boy tried to say, Nick couldn’t hear it. It was a muted sound, like listening to people talk underwater and desperately trying to dive underneath with them.

A girl was leaning against the chimney. A pale yellow blouse and green jacket hanging limply off her frame. They didn’t fit her well, but the worn elbows and soft-linings sure did. The collar was popped up (as Ghetto’s had been, the first time Nick saw him), and she was smiling. Dark brown eyes. She had a tooth gap.

And then it was gone like that—quick as a flash. Pain shot through his head and Nick doubled over. Someone was hammering nails into his brain, jumping up and down every time he made a noise of pain, no matter how small. It felt like hell. And the longing and sadness that filled his body after the short memory almost brought him to his knees.

Great, first zombies, now flashbacks, or something. Wonderful.

The second thing that he noticed was that it was quiet.

Extremely quiet.

Not the zombie-less quiet, no, this was something completely different. It dawned on him as the last of his vision (flashback?) faded from view and was replaced with nothing to think of other than the silence. The wrongness of the situation drove into his body like talons ripping into flesh. A small voice in his head was screaming at him, a voice built up from millions of years living in pack groups barking that he was alone. Completely alone.

Nick couldn’t hear any cans being opened, any snoring, any cupboards or doors being opened and closed. The house sounded… _empty_.

Like the morning he woke up in here. Nick shivered.

He blinked once. Then twice, washing away the black spots in his vision. His headache was finally letting up, allowing him to see and think properly, and that’s when it hit him: where was Ghetto?

Usually, by this time of day, Ghetto was up and yelling at Nick to, quote on quote, “ _Get the fuck up, dude! You may sleep but the apocalypse doesn’t!_ ” Nick had gotten quite used to his voice waking him up early, so used to it that he managed to sleep in till god knows how late without it. He shivered, looking to where his door was closed shut and bolted. The two had installed locks on all the doors without them a few days ago. For safety.

Nick knew that Ghetto could still be sleeping—everyone needs to sleep in sometimes, right? But it still wasn't natural. Anxiety gnawed at Nick’s stomach.

Grabbing a rolled-up shirt from the ground, Nick pulled it on over the “shirt” he wore to bed (if Ghetto was allowed to sleep shirtless from time-to-time then goddamn it Nick was too. Unfortunately, unlike Ghetto, he still had to wear at least a t-shirt underneath) and winced at the way the itchy fabric scratched at his skin.

No time for worrying about that shit now, he had to go! Go, go, go!

Nick threw on some other clothes and nearly turned to run out the door before realizing he didn’t have his scarf. Backtracking to last night, Nick turned around and snatched it off of the wall, and _then_ bolted towards the door.

Slamming his head into the door and directing the poor, unfortunate nausea that had been lightly swirling around in his stomach to a full-out choreographed dance routine worthy of an Oscar, Nick unlocked the door and, for the second time, dashed out the door. Ghetto’s door was swung wide open, the room devoid of life.

Nick sprinted down the stairs two steps at a time, almost tripping over the L-shape it curved into. Steadying himself on the railing, Nick flew into the kitchen as carefully as possible to avoid another locked-door situation. His headache at the back of his mind, he yelled Ghetto’s name several times, to no avail.

“Ghetto? Are you out there?” Nick asked, peering out the back door. Nothing except for the wind blowing through the trees, and the swinging of that small board over yesterday's bullets.

_He couldn't be gone, Ghetto couldn’t. They had been together for only two weeks, he couldn’t be gone this quickly. He couldn't. He wouldn’t leave. He wouldn't. Or would he…?_

“Enough of that,” Nick murmured to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. No thoughts like that

He headed back inside, hands shaking. Ghetto was fine, he had to be—probably just going on a supply run, or fixing the barricade. Well, the latter couldn’t be true, Ghetto would’ve heard Nick’s shouting. It had to be the former.

A small note was laying on the kitchen table, words hastily scribbled onto it: _im checking out the docks. be back soon. —ghetto_

The pit of anxiety forming in Nick’s stomach dissolved. He breathed a sigh of relief—Ghetto wasn’t gone for good. Right. He mentioned the docks yesterday. Nick groaned to himself, smacking himself in the face for being so panicked over someone he barely knew. But, it was sorta reasonable. Ghetto was the only other person in this city—other than the mysterious shooter, and Nick wouldn’t trust that person to be friendly. Or to put up with Nick’s shit.

Guess he’d be going out on a supply run as well.

Nick dropped the note back on the table, signing it off with a check mark, just in case. Just in case Ghetto got back before Nick found him. Just in case. Though, he hoped he would run into Ghetto at least on the way there. He wasn’t clingy, not at all, just… paranoid.

Grabbing a small backpack off of one of the many hangers nailed into the wall, he rubbed his thumb along the nylon, wincing as a sharp pain hit his head. But Nick wouldn’t let a little headache stop him, no matter how shitty he was feeling when he woke up! Fresh air was good for you anyways.

He stopped to toss a water bottle and several granola bars into the pack, and, after a moment of decision, the pistol. It had a full magazine—Ghetto must’ve reloaded it the night before, while Nick was struggling out of his clothes (more specifically, the binder—by the time they got back and settled, he’d been wearing it the majority of the day). And then out the door, he went.

As he stepped out onto the street, Nick paused and looked back. On the rolling hills that formed the east side of the island, he could see several houses dotting them. One had a hideous orange roof, half painted white. Horridly painted white. Nick shook his head and turned away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I remember in the kitchen, when you told me your grandma died_   
>  _That's when I realized it gets worse_   
>  _I want to wish things last forever_   
>  _Won't you thicken my soft skin_
> 
> [Condition 11:11 - Defiance, Ohio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfl_0yQgF6M)  
>  (Edit: I've changed the time from October to Late February. Fuck you, Crafting Dead timeline.)


	5. F IS FOR FRIENDSHIT (THAT BURNS DOWN THE WHOLE TOWN!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick vaguely remembered the way to the waterfront, from what he’d seen on his first day out. Ghetto was probably near the docks and the two large ships he said stood there, unusable. The beaches were crawling with zombies—hell, maybe they were getting a “tropical vacation.”

THERE WAS A WAREHOUSE.

Getting over the fence had been relatively easy—it was standing near the barricade and the small pile of furniture they’d left out there instead of making the good decision to bring it inside and use it for something else. Like firewood. He grunted as he dropped onto the ground, landing next to his backpack he’d thrown before. Nick could hear walkers approaching, drawn to the noise. He decided to duck into the nearest house and go through the backyards instead of facing them, as he’d done many times before.

Nick vaguely remembered the way to the waterfront, from what he’d seen on his first day out. Ghetto was probably near the docks and the two large ships he said stood there, unusable. The beaches were crawling with zombies—hell, maybe they were getting a “tropical vacation.”

He didn’t know the way to the docks. The thought dawned on him as he tore through the city, tripping over his own feet too many times to count. But it had to be around here somewhere. The waterfront would be the only place where a dock would be, after all. Who the fuck would put a dock in the middle of the land?

So many wrong turns later, and he ran into a warehouse. The same warehouse he was currently staring up at, taking in the very size of it. Several stories tall, abandoned and worn down to all hell and, from what he could hear, absolutely _crawling_ with walkers. Nick shrunk back. _Maybe I could just go back and wait for Ghetto to get back?_ he thought to himself, instinctively backing away.

A voice in his head was yelling at him not to be a pussy. Egging him towards the building, pushing its hands into his back and making Nick stumble. _C’mon,_ she whispered in his ear. _You can’t just leave your buddy on his own._ He pushed one of the doors open. The voice faded away, leaving only the faintest trace of a warm smile and this jolt through his head that sent pain racking up it and he nearly fell with the intensity of the feeling.

The doors swung open.

It was so, so dark inside. The rafters above swayed; they hadn’t been properly maintained, and he could see the bolts and strings attaching them safely to the rest of the warehouse coming undone. One wrong move and the entire thing could come crashing down. Figures prowled up on it, leering down at him with eyes glowing in the darkness and with no fear. They wouldn’t feel the pain if the rafters, roof, building came down. They never felt any pain, only the desire to feed and tear and bite. The walkers bared their teeth as Nick let the door swing shut behind him.

On the second hand, the warehouse wasn’t as dark as originally thought. Faint sunlight trickled in through windows. It fanned over the room and pointed out zombies like stage lights, shambling slowly towards him. Nick took a step back.

At least all he had to do was stand and shoot. And shoot out the occasional window, glass flying across the air and embedding itself in walls and zombies and scattering across the ground. The problem came when the upper-level corpses decided to take an interest in him, dropping like flies—but, unfortunately, unlike most flies, not snapping their little fly necks and dying

The walk was much longer than it should’ve been. The floor was littered with random things—crates, the occasional weapon or two, blood and the other… things that went with it. Signs of a struggle. The signs of the people who tried, and failed to fight against the hordes of walkers.

Nick screamed as he nearly stepped on a walker (speak of the devil, amirite). Stumbling back, he laughed at himself. _Jesus, Nico, you should be used to these things by now_ , a voice in his head laughed. There was a bullet between its eyes. Fresh blood leaking out with cloudy eyes and a blank expression. It looked too human. Kicked beneath its head was an empty magazine. Nick could still smell the smoke from the barrel of a gun and a crooked grin as it was put down. He shivered.

The scene had Ghetto written all over it. So did the footsteps in the dust, leading up a long staircase, the one that spilled out onto the scarce second floor, bared teeth glowing in the darkness.

Dust danced in the air as Nick ran his hand along the railing. Taking the steps one at a time, leaving imprints that mirrored those of his partners. His chest seized and he swore, he fucking _swore_ that he’d been in a situation like this before. Walking up a dusty staircase in some rural building. Not that this was rural by any of the meaning, but it always felt like it, with the way the powerlines swung limply and moans whistled in the breeze.

Finishing the final stair, Nick realized that there was… there was nothing up here. Nothing besides a long wall covered in scratches and dents and long, pink strings of something he didn’t want to know. No eyes were glistening, no teeth bared. Just footsteps in the dust and gore splattered across the walls.

On the ground in front of him was a crowbar. Picking it up, Nick couldn’t stop from wondering what happened to the previous owner. It was covered in rust that crept down like veins.

He swung it around in a wide arc, catching the walker creeping up to him in the temple. It lodged in its skull, then the force of the blow sent the creature flying, straining against the railing before falling over and crashing to the ground. From up here, Nick could hear the sound of bones cracking. Blood dripped from the crowbar. Nick dropped it like a bomb, his hands shaking

The stairs creaked as the pink streamers on the wall came undone, unraveling onto the ground from undead arms dragging them down. There were only a few walkers approaching, half of them still on the ground level, but Nick stilled.

He had no weapon—he was out of ammo. You couldn’t get him to pick that crowbar back up if you promised a life of happiness and safety.

Out in front of him were the rafters. Balanced across the building, wood beginning to rot. The walkers were coming closer. He had no weapon. Nick backed up and ran, heels slipping off the railing as he landed on the first rafter, catching himself as he nearly fell off. The rafters creaked loudly, echoing all the way down. The backpack felt too heavy on his back. Nick took in a deep breath.

Up here, Nick could feel a small draft filtering in from some unseen hole in the manufacturing. Ripped through the ceiling from years of rain and weathering, no one bothering to fix it. What damage could it do? It wasn’t as if they expected someone to walk up here and feel the wind brushing over their body as they tried not to fall.

The rafters creaked and groaned under his weight. His scarf was gently bobbing up and down in the wind, flapping out behind him, at least a few feet back. It covered up the goosebumps that tried to creep up his back, to raise the hairs on the back of his neck, to make him shiver up in the cold ceiling. Once again, he was grateful for the comfort is provided—and the warmth, winter was still in full swing, after all.

Nick’s stomach lurched as he looked down, upon the sea of crates strewn across the warehouse floor like a maze. And the zombies trying to navigate that maze, looking confused when they couldn’t find out where he went. It was so far down, much much farther than when he started this little… journey across the ceiling. A tight knot was forming in the empty, confident part of his stomach, tightening his throat and sending waves of fear across his brain, down to the tips of his toes. Nick swallowed it down, pushing the uncomfortable, anxious feeling out of his mind.

At the end of the third rafter, the one right above the room Nick had found, with the dusty old books, there was a gap between it and the fourth. A considerably large gap, next to Nick, who was a solid five-three and hadn’t grown since the fifth grade.

Nick took in a deep breath (he’d been taking a lot of those lately, it seemed) and leaped across the gap.

He barely made it, landing hard on the edge of the board with the end of his feet, throwing him off balance as he reached up for something, anything, to grab onto. The rafter jutted out to the side, groaning loudly and screeching with the movement, and Nick went flying off.

This time, Nick landed on his knees. The knees of his jeans ripped, dragging stone against his bare knees. The pain was nearly unbelievable—both from the long scratches and avulsions on his knees. _Guess this… whatever, building, thing, doesn’t need its own gore anymore_. Tears pricked in the back of his eyes and the room swayed.

Nick looked around the best he could. He was on… he was on a completely different side of the building. With another loud screech and the sound of metal being torn from the wall, a whole line of rafters fell to the ground, sending dust swirling into the air. He coughed and swatted it away, swearing like a sailor when some of it brushed past his wounds and made them pulse with heat and pain. That was gonna scar.

A shorter staircase was only a few feet below him, off of the surface he’d landed on. Either stone or brick, he couldn’t tell with all the dust. Biting into the side of his cheek, Nick eased himself down and dropped off the side of it. Cried when he hit the floor, his legs buckling. The things he fucking did for the people around him….

With one hand on the wall, Nick limped up the stairs. A room met him, the door wide open and knocked off its hinges. A small alcove to the side, glass, and stone keeping him from entering. Empty cans and books littered around idly. It looked inhabited.

On the other side of the room was a door. A door (perhaps also knocked off its hinges) leading to a bright light and the sound of waves crashing against a harbor. _Bingo_.

Nick straightened his back and (despite severely limping) walked over to the door. It was more like an opening, as Nick could see no actual door fitted into the slots embedded in the side of the wall. Whatever door that might’ve been there once had been ripped off, or destroyed in some similar manner.

His hair fell into his face as Nick peered around the opening, out to the docks. There was a large truck parked several feet away ( _Handcrafted Chairs, only $25.69!_ it displayed. _NICE_ , went a voice in the back of his head) from where he was standing, and Nick had to repress a groan. It blocked his view.

More blood ran down his knees as Nick made his way out the door.

Damn it.

Nick could hear footsteps shuffling around behind the truck. Whether or not they were human or walker was to be decided, as he crept to the side of the truck.

Peering around the side of it (he’d been doing a lot of that recently, huh) he could see a vague outline of a shape. A shape with a rifle strapped to its back, carting around a heavy-looking backpack like it was nothing, glaring up at the sun, dark-skinned and haired. Which reminded Nick, he still had a severe migraine going on, as a shock rang through his head. The pain of his little fall had knocked it right out of his head—for the time being.

Ghetto was pacing back and forth on the docks. A hand in his hair, the other held at his side, inching towards the gun on his back. None of the usual confidence or comfortable composure he usually showed. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. “Fuck, fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck! I shouldn't have left, I shouldn't have left, I _really_ shouldn't have left the way I did—"

He didn’t know what he was so riled up about, but Nick could only assume it wasn’t good. The stress was plastered on his face like a tattoo.

Nick sighed. Despite his knees and body begging him to go and lay down, he knew that if Ghetto needed help, he’d be there to provide it. He wasn’t—he wasn’t a fucking asshole. Nick wouldn’t just leave a friend to be stressed like that. Or maybe he’d cause even more problems, being there. Could walkers smell blood? Were they like sharks? Or maybe—

There was someone behind him.

AK-47. He knew of those. Ghetto always liked joking about getting one of them and fighting their way out of the city. AK-47, pale skin, bare arms, scrawny figure. Nearly as tall as Ghetto himself—probably only a few inches off. Nick’s eyes widened and they looked up, meeting his. Ghetto finally looked over towards the truck, seeing Nick and forcing a grin before seeing his face and turning around in what seemed to be in slow-motion and Nick had to stop himself from crying out and yelling at him to _don’t, just leave!_

The figure froze, again. “What the fuuuccck?” Ghetto said, backing away, reaching towards the rifle on his back. The guy reached towards a gun on his own back, swearing profoundly. Nick stood between the two, not of help, not of us.  

“Well shit, I was—I was kinda hoping you wouldn’t notice me.” The gun fell into his hands, pointed directly at Ghetto. “Buuut, since you didn’t, we’re gonna have to do this the hard way.”

“You mean the way where one of us dies?” Ghetto snorted, sarcasm dripping from his words. He now had his own gun in his hands, switching it between the two. The man’s face visibly dropped at it, nearly letting go of his own firearm to hold his head in his hand and groan. “Nah, I’m good. So, how about you back the fuck off and we go our separate ways? I’m tired of this shit happening.”

Nick could see no way this could end well. Ghetto was glaring at the other man with all his might, but the other barely seemed fazed. If anything, he was glaring back at Ghetto with the same amount of intensity, just hidden under a stony face and what might be a mask? Nick couldn’t tell from this angle—a majority of the man was hidden. And so was Nick from him. That was for the better, he supposed. He wasn’t exactly the _best_ in a fight.

“Can’t really do that, sorry, since I’m camping out ‘round here,” the man responded. God, referring to him as “the man” was getting annoying. The pale-skinned fellow? Ponytail person?

Nick was so caught up in his own thoughts that he nearly missed Ghetto talking again. “Welp, then I’ll leave, and we won’t get caught up in any bullshit. That good with you?” He’d experienced before. The dangerously low tone of his voice, bent knees, pointed look. That was the look of someone who was ready to fight-or-flight at any moment.

“We could do that,” the man responded, “we could very much do that. But, since you’re technically trespassing on my land—”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the city’s land, jackass.”

“—I think I may need to teach you a lesson.” It was a threat. The same way Ghetto’s low voice was a threat. Nick’s stomach turned. _This isn’t gonna end up good._

“Dude, what the fuck? Like, letting me leave you the fuck alone would be so much easier, you know that, right?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “I have my reasoning.”

“What, you want me for a midnight fuckin’ snack? A friend so you could make up for the one you, I don’t know, killed?” Ghetto shot back, bristling. _This isn’t gonna end up good this isn’t gonna end up good this isn’t gonna end up good_.

“I have my reasoning!” Nick jumped. Ghetto gave him a hard look as best he could, trying not to alert the guy to any other people on his “land.” It was useless, seeing as the guy had already seen Nick, but he could appreciate Ghetto trying to keep him “safe.” Or to possibly have less blood on the hands, one of the two. “You being an asshole isn’t gonna get you anywhere. Hell, this could be a lesson to teach you!”

“What are you, my mom?”

The look the man gave Ghetto was dangerous. “Jesus Christ, I seriously might give up and find something different to—fuck it, I’m really not in the mood.”

Ghetto opened his mouth and Nick immediately knew something was gonna go wrong after his next words. The man had his head slightly tilted, eyes narrowed a little too low. He was planning something. Nick nearly yelled out at him to leave but didn’t. “Don’t worry, I’ll wait until you’re in the mood. Pretty nice place you got here, I could spend a few hours or days around—”

The gun was knocked from his hand. The man was aiming his own gun directly where Ghetto’s used to be. It now had a nasty dent, the metal smoking where the bullet hit, scattering against the ground before the gun finally came to a stop, several feet away from Ghetto.

Time seemed to stop. Nick lifted a hand to his mouth: Ghetto looked from the rifle back to the man: the latter barely changed, the same stony face, not even a slight upturn to the mouth. The storm clouds that had been gathering above head crackled with lightning, groaning with the force of gallons of rain holding up inside it. “Holy fuck,” Nick whispered. Ghetto scowled. The man remained the same.

And as the first drop of rain fell from the sky, moving as slow as the progress of time, Nick swore he felt whoever decided the turn of the fates, who drove the story along, smile. Smile for the chaos that was about to come. The rain splattered onto the ground, sending particles of water outwards and across the ground.

Ghetto lunged for his gun. Bullets sprayed across the ground as he ran towards it, leaving a trail in his path. Nick pulled his pistol back out, fumbling with a new magazine in his hands. Ghetto let out a yell of triumph as he reached his firearm, skidding across the ground and kicking it up into the air. It, in all honesty, looked like an action movie trick. What the fuck, Ghetto.

A string of curse words, along with the sound of bullets stopping echoed as Ghetto sprinted towards the truck Nick was hiding behind. Whether it was from Ghetto or the man, Nick couldn’t tell.

Ghetto threw himself on the ground next to Nick. Bullets slammed into the truck, rocking it towards them and thudding hard against Nick’s head and back. White spots circled in his eyes as he reached back and rubbed the now-bruising mark on his neck, letting out a cry of pain at the touch. He swore he felt something like blood.

At his yell, Ghetto pushed himself up and let his own string of curse words out. “What the fuck—you good man?”

“Yeah,” Nick replied, still blinking spots out of his eyes.

Ghetto moved next to him and peered around the side of the truck. A bullet shot past him, just barely grazing the side of his head. Nick clamped a hand to his mouth to stop from yelling out. Ghetto reached up and brushed the blood away, his expression nothing like Nick had ever seen before. “Alright.”

“Alright?” Nick echoed.

“Alright.” Ghetto groaned. “We have to—Jesus Christ, dude. What happened to you before I—nevermind, the point is. We need to get rid of this fucker. That or distract him long enough to get the fuck away because _obviously_ , people haven’t learned that it’s better to make friends than fucking enemies.”

Bullets were still pelting into the truck and walls and ground around them. Ghetto groaned again, louder this time. “Fuck, you think we can go back through that warehouse? I’d rather not have to deal with this more than we already are.”

“Don’t think we can,” Nick said, “the last time I was in there, there were so many walkers I… I just couldn’t take care of them myself. That or I’m a horrible fighter.”

“Fuck. Shit. I don’t wanna deal with walkers _either_.” Ghetto paused, stroking his non-existent beard thoughtfully. “Okay, okay, you see that little, opening thing over there?” He pointed out what in fact looked to be an opening, farther down the docks. “I know for a solid fact that that opening leads back into the city. We make it there, we make it out. Think you’re up for running?”

Nick looked down at his knees. Blood was drying on them. Several dark bruises were popping up around the wound. “Yeah. I think I am.”

“Good. On my mark, we book it. You go first, I cover you.”

“I can handle _myself_.”

“No, you can’t.” Ghetto held the gun tightly in his hands, already rising. “On my mark."

The gunshots subsided, and the distinct sound of footsteps approached. “Get set.”

Nick was on his feet now. Ghetto was bouncing on his like some video game character on a loading screen. “Aaaaand”—the footsteps were even nearer, faster than they should be—”GO! Run run run run RUN!”

His legs screamed in protest as he took off, Ghetto not far behind him. A confused yell met his ears but, with a prompting hand on his back from Ghetto, Nick continued running. God, he hoped that he wouldn’t trip. Behind him, on the concrete, he was leaving behind deep red stains in the gray stone. A trail leading straight to him, wherever he went.

A bullet grazed past his side. Nick stumbled, pressing his hand to it. More blood.

“Hey! HEY, BACK THE FUCK OFF! DON’T PULL THIS SHIT!” Nick turned his head. The hand left his back.

Bullets whizzed back and forth. Ghetto was firing back the best he could, trying to follow Nick’s footsteps. They were _so_ close. He could see buildings, skyscrapers through the opening. And the sound of moans, groans, shambling footsteps just beyond their way to safety. The sound of shots rang in his ears, they were all Nick could hear. Ghetto was yelling something.

They rounded the corner and Ghetto let out a scream of triumph. Free in the city, sprinting past the walkers who clawed at them and grabbed at their flailing limbs and loose clothing. The exhilaration of survival.

* * *

“So,” Nick started. “What was _that_ all about?”

Ghetto winced, shying away from the rag Nick was dragging across his face. The inflamed skin looked painful, but he was just making it worse by not fucking allowing Nick to actually help treat it. He shrugged.”Dunno. I’ve never seen that motherfucker in my _life_ , don’t know what bullshit he was on about.”

“Situations like this can bring out the worst in people, I guess.”

“Yeah, but we’re doin’ fine. Why the hell does he get a pass for being a bag of shit?” Ghetto said, reaching up and picking at the dried blood along his face.

Nick swatted his hand away, returning the rag to its spot. “Dunno, man. Maybe he was born like it.”

“Maybe it’s Maybelline.” Ghetto smiled at that.

A gunshot rang out.

Nick jumped, swiping the rag hard against Ghetto’s face, who let out a yell of pain in response and shoved him away.

“What the fuck,” Nick whispered.

Another. And another. And another. Not the same as the guy from before—not that organized, precise shooting of someone who’d been doing it for god-knows how long, but messy and unstable. Like his was, trying to protect himself from walkers. Someone extremely inexperienced with fighting and combat had a gun, was shooting, and didn’t have someone like Ghetto to teach them what the fuck to do.

“What the fuck, indeed,” came the response. Ghetto wiped some blood off of his face and still wincing.

“Do you think… do you think it’s that guy?” Nick didn’t even wanna say it, didn’t want to jinx them and their already bad luck. “Think he’s come back for revenge?”

Ghetto pinched the bridge of his nose. Nick folded into himself. His knees throbbed painfully, bringing attention to the fact that they were still scraped beyond belief. “If that motherfucker is back I swear to god, I’m gonna lose it,” Ghetto said, removing his hand from his nose and pushing away Nick’s rag. He didn’t fight back. “And if he’s back for revenge then trust me, I’ll kick his ass. He’s not the only fuckin’ one around these parts who wants revenge, the asshole.”

Nick grimaced, the gunfight from earlier flashing through his mind again. Well, as much as he picked up. Things were… it was… it was hard to remember things like that. To play them back in one's mind whenever needed. Only when they weren’t needed did people remember them.

“Okay, alright. I go to the door, open it, and you look to see if anyone’s out there. If there is, get the fuck out of the way and tell me. If there isn’t, we either stay here or go, agreed?” Ghetto said, flicking off specks of blood from his fingers. They flew onto the wall, patterning tiny red stains onto the wood.

Anxiety was digging into his gut. “Alright,” Nick responded, nodding along with his words as if he didn’t think the single word would quite do it, would reassure Ghetto that he was on his side. They felt heavy in his mouth, pulling at his tongue and trying to stop them from flowing. He didn’t want to go through something like that again. He was going to go through something like that again if he wanted to survive. Nick could already tell, a gut instinct.

Ghetto nodded back. “Alright.”

It should’ve surprised Nick how quickly Ghetto pulled out a gun and moved to the door, pressing against the wood beside it. It should’ve surprised him how badly his hands were shaking. It didn’t. Ghetto raised a finger to his lips.

“On my mark,” he whispered.

Nick nodded. He stood back, his own pressing into the table Ghetto had been bracing himself against, one hand rubbing his temple and the other swatting away Nick and his rag.

“Get set.”

Nick watched as he reached towards the door handle. He squinted his eyes, ready to catch anything that would pop up. He was to be the one to warn Ghetto of any incoming danger, so he’d have to be ready. That was his job. He wouldn’t let anything happen to his friend, not after he risked his life to get both of them out of there.

“And.” Nick suddenly felt very, very naked without a weapon. And very, very aware that he was going to be looking out for danger in one of the least safe ways possible. “ _Go_.”

He swung open the door.

And absolutely fuckin’ nothin’ happened.

Nick repeated it to Ghetto, leaving out the “fuckin’ nothin’” part, however. More scattered gunshots. Ghetto muttered something that sounded very much like “fuck this” and ran out the door, loading his gun with one hand and carrying it with the other. Nick ran after him, squawking in confusion because _why would you run towards danger_?

The sounds came from halfway down the street. Ghetto was barreling towards it, full speed while Nick limped along behind him. His knees hadn’t quite forgiven him for the rafters incident many, many minutes ago and the pain in his head was back to wreak havoc on him. He’d done something like this, watching his sister race down this street, chasing after some douche who’d been harassing neighbor kids. Nick didn’t have a sister.

“Hurry _up_!” Ghetto just barely waited for him to catch up before taking off again. “I wanna see who the fuck this is and possibly maybe kick their ass.” Nick gave him a weak thumbs-up in agreement, his chest heaving.

“Who the fuck—” He stopped. Full force, Nick nearly running into his back as he raised one arm to stop him. “What the fuck.”

Nick shook his head lightly and looked to where Ghetto was staring, his eyes meeting houses, trees, walkers, a person— _a person._

“Holy fuck,” he breathed. Ghetto tensed up beside him, letting his gun fall limply to his side and making a noise of confusion. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Yeah,” Ghetto said. “Yeah, I’m pretty damn sure I’m seeing what you're seeing.

Not too far away from them, letting out yells of defiance and growling and shrieking every time he hit something, was a kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I ain't happy, I'm feeling glad_   
>  _I got sunshine in a bag_   
>  _I'm useless but not for long_   
>  _The future is coming on_
> 
> [Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UclCCFNG9q4)


	6. "there's one thing worse than a killer" "a child" "NO"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Alright,” he responded. “Don’t die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sgc tried his damn best to pull me into his shitty schedule curse. he broke my computer, then forced writers block upon my head. he's trying to stop me from spreading the good word. that motherfucker. I'M BACK THOUGH AND THE REWRITE'S SEXIER THAN EVER.

THE KID WAS PRESSED against a tree, fighting desperately with some lame excuse of a pistol (which was out of bullets) and a knife too large for his hand. He couldn’t have been older than six or seven, yet the fierce determination on his face as he hacked away at the undead read something much, much older than the small body it lay on. But, despite his ancient look, he was still so _small_. Round face, dark curls, and bright green eyes that outshone his maturity and made him look, well, look like a kid. Blood splattered against his tiger hoodie.

Nick suddenly realized that more people might’ve survived than originally thought. (One-percent of ten or so billion is still up in the high millions.)

The zombies just kept coming after him—every single one he managed to barely take down was replaced with another or two or four. He was losing his fight, and it was obvious in his eyes. Wide and scared, his movements sluggish and clumsy. He wasn’t used to fighting. He shouldn’t have even been fighting.

Ghetto’s mouth was parted in surprise. A quick glance to gather his reaction confirmed it.

“That kid’s holding a fucking—a loaded goddamn pistol,” Ghetto whispered. “That’s not—that’s not anything he should be using at whatever-fuck age he’s at, Jesus Christ, that kid looks five.”

His voice, balanced between a laugh and a murmur of pain, wavered towards the end. Dipping low at “Jesus Christ” and cracking at “that kid.” Nick couldn’t tell if he was about to break out in snotty tears or rip apart every zombie (technically, that’s what they were) from their corner of the world to the last mouthful and breath of defiance of fire and brimstone in hell. His face flashed so many different emotions in so few seconds that Nick couldn’t tell if he truly was making faces or if morse code was being etched into it with how thin of a line his mouth came to be.

Ghetto moved before Nick could even blink. Well, he didn't, but it's the thought that counts.

First walker—out before he even got his fingers around the trigger. A swift crack to the face and a knife slammed into the skull with a flat palm. It looked like an action movie scene, and Nick was still not a hundred percent convinced that Ghetto wasn’t an actual trained fighter or something. The second one got a bullet in the brain. Third—the one that was cowering over the small kid—reeled back just in time to get sent back to whatever hellhole it came from with a barrel underneath its chin. Nick was pretty sure Ghetto didn’t really need to go to all these lengths just to take out three zombie-walker-undead-whatever. Probably showing off to the kid, making himself out to be an action movie hero that people amaze over.

And amazed the kid was. Even with his arms around his knees and blood on that obnoxiously orange tiger hoodie, the kid watched Ghetto fight with stars in his eyes, mouth wide open in wonder. Fuck, he looked like he was five. Or younger.

When the dust had settled, and the walkers were dead on the ground, Ghetto swung his rifle onto his left arm and held his hand out to the kid. “You okay there?” he asked, hand looking about the size of the kid’s forearm.

The kid nodded shyly and reached out for Ghetto’s hand. “I’m okay! Thank you, Mister,” he said, with all the maturity a young kiddo could summon up. He still looked like he wasn’t quite over the attack from earlier, with his hand trembling and all. He looked towards Nick. “Who’s that? Are they with—watch out!”

Ghetto straighten and spun around at the speed of light. Another few walkers had crept up while he had been talking with the kid, and Nick, like the kid, was too awestruck to notice—or act—on their familiar foes. “ _Ghetto_!”

One of the creatures leered forward and slashed a long nail across his chest, cutting a laceration that didn’t look deep but crossed down towards his stomach. Ghetto only took a second to stumble back in surprise before his rifle was back in his dominant hand and he was cracking it up and into the walker's jaw. It lunged forward, barely registering the attack and got a mouthful of lead and gunpowder.

He took a few seconds to gather himself, brushing the beading blood off of his shirt and assessing the situation around him. Looked between himself, the kid, the walkers, and finally Nick, who was standing uncomfortably to the side as the whole experience went down.

“Nick!” he barked, and Nick quite literally jumped. “You still got that pistol from earlier?” At his head shake, he cursed loudly and openly, considering the fact that he was still in front of a child, and anxiously tapped his finger against his own rifle. The cut on his chest was starting to bead up again, blood dribbling out of it and running down his shirt, staining it a deep red. His hand brushed against it and came out red, smearing the bloody mess all across the trigger his fingers were gripped tight around. Nick was sure he was going to accidentally press down and blow off his own foot. “Fuck.”

There weren’t as many walkers as Nick expected there to be—and, as a person who’d dealt with very little walkers, that was saying something, coming from him—but, further down the road, he could see more coming. Ghetto was bouncing on the balls of his feet, the kid had his face buried in his knees, and Nick didn’t know what to do.

“Well, then.” He drew out the words, punctuating them with a smile that barely lifted the corners of his mouth. “C’mon, motherfuckers.” Ghetto extended his left hand to the walkers, the smile stretching out into a grimace that seemed more forced than one should attempt to make. He had a white-knuckle grip on his rifle. “Let’s… fuckin’, I don’t know. Dance? Something like that.”

Nick only managed to capture him charging the nearest walker and impaling the barrel of his gun through its chest before he turned away, nausea rising in his throat. Oh, God, was he gonna vomit? That wouldn’t be good, especially not in this situation. His throat was tight and burned with bile and he kinda wanted to run as far away as possible, or hide behind Ghetto, or do both, not necessarily in that order. God, fuck! He was still a teen—yeah, that sounded right. An adult but a teen, eighteen or nineteen, maybe. He shouldn’t have to be dealing with this shit! But, if he was a teen, then Ghetto was probably still in his very early twenties, which wasn’t that much better.

A choked sob interrupted his thoughts.

He whipped his head back, only to be reminded of the small child still huddled up on the side of the block. His head was still buried in his knees, but his body trembled with the occasional sobs and it sounded like he was hiccuping bad. There was blood coating the ends of his pants, and a long cut down the side of his leg that Nick hadn’t noticed before. The kid lifted his head to look at him, face wet with tears. He went to go wipe his face off, turning away from Nick in the process, but another rack of sobs stopped him in his place and then he was full-out bawling on the side of the street, loud enough for Nick to hear even with Ghetto’s gunshots and the walkers moaning.

Nick felt his face soften, swallowed down the bile in his throat, and near-out sprinted to where the kid was standing.

The bile, still threatening to come back up even after his fruitless attempts to tell it to fuck off, was replaced by throat-tightening, unfamiliar nurturing feeling that rooted deep inside his chest and held on tight, gripping his heart and making it seize as he crouched down next to the kid, worry burning all over his face in fine lines. He could feel it, too. Along with the sincerity deep in his chest, surprising him almost as much as waking up in the apocalypse did. The kid gingerly turned his face towards him, eyes glassy.

“You okay?” he asked, mimicking Ghetto’s words with a softness he did not know he was capable of, higher tones than he was used too. The femininity of the pitch itched at his brain and chest. “Did any of them hurt you too badly?”

The kid recovered from his sobbing fit, stifling down to sniffles. He looked up at Nick, who had replaced his uncomfortable crouch for a sit with his legs tucked neatly beneath him, angled to the side. “...Who are you?” he said, voice scratched and cracking and sounding so kid-like it made his heart hurt.

“I’m Nick.” He offered his hand to the kid. That’s what you were supposed to do, right? Like cats, but instead of sniffing it kids take it or something. “I don’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry that the walkers… zombies… I’m sorry that they attacked you. Are you hurt? Do you need any help or medical attention?”

The kid looked at him. His green eyes were wider than the moon. Dark skin, dark hair that peaked out from under the pulled-over tiger hoodie that looked like it had seen much, much better days, hanging loosely on his frame. It reminded Nick of his own sweater; on some days, he had to roll up the sleeves slightly to keep them from falling over his hands and tripping him up. Even on days that it didn’t, it was still baggy enough that he could slip in a full knife in there and have it be concealed. But, despite all of that, it clung to his frame like soaked clothing. Hung down longer than it should’ve. The kid’s pants were soaked in the general area of the blood from before, reaching up to his knees with water and dirt and the cut that definitely didn’t look too good, edges inflamed.

He _really_ looked at Nick and, despite Ghetto’s ever-going gunshots and yells, despite the walkers and the groans, despite the fact that Nick was a total stranger, threw himself onto him and began bawling again.

He wasn’t _used_ to having a little kid sob into his shoulder. He really wasn’t used to having a kid sob in the general area of him. He wasn’t used to having a kid sobbing on him when he wasn’t used to having kids sob near him in the middle of a damn near war zone, but hey, who doesn’t love surprises?

Nick raised a hesitant hand to the back of the kid’s neck before cupping it gently, raising his other to the kid’s back and holding him like that. The kid curled into the touch and sobbed harder, crying about his parents and a few names Nick couldn’t make out over the wailing. The feeling in his chest pulled him in further and next thing he knew, Nick could feel tears pricking in the back of his eyes.

Ghetto was dealing with the last few walkers. At the last second, several of them had swarmed and gave him hell until he put a bullet between the last one’s eyes. It fell to the ground with a hard crunch, signaling the end of the massacre and the beginning of the retreat. Nick blinked away his tears and looked up towards his friend, stumbling to them.

“Kid good?” he rasped. Coughed into his arm once; dust was still floating in the air several feet again. Tried again. “The kid good? He alright?”

“Yeah… yeah, I think he’s fine. Besides a cut on his leg, he doesn’t look to have any major injuries. Physical, that is.” The kid was sniffling and getting snot and tears all over his sweater and scarf. Still blubbering on about his parents and family and about some guy he called “AK,” which seemed like a weird fucking name for a living person. Unless he was talking about the gun, then the kid had weird fucking attachments to inanimate things.

“Oh, fuck—I mean, shit! Probably shouldn’t swear in front of little kids.” The kid giggled into Nick’s shoulder, hysterical hiccups interrupting it halfway through. Great, now he was laughing about random things. That stage of grief is the worse. “But, damn, little dude, what happened to you? Damn isn’t that bad of a word, right? It’s just like hell. Hell and damn, damn and hell. Fuckin’ Max and Ruby-ing up this shit FUCK I swore again.”

Nick looked up at him with squinted eyes and a faint grin he was desperately trying to hide. “Yes, you did swear again.” The kid giggled again, snorting gently into his shoulder. Well, shit, maybe Ghetto swearing was helping and not hurting.

The kid turned, hoodie falling off to reveal even more dark curls swirling down and around his face. “Got chased by those… whatevers. Tripped over something. Fell and scraped my leg on something,” he responded, much more coherent then Nick would’ve thought.

“That’s… that’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” Ghetto said. “Got anybody looking after you, or are you just here on your own? Shit, who the hell would leave a little kid on their own?”

“Rose and Jim are gone. Don’t know where.” At Ghetto’s questioning look, he added, “They’re my parents. Don’t think they’re on the island anymore.”

“Who would leave their kid alone on an island,” Nick murmured to himself. Jordan shifted and turned and wiped the tears left on his face away. God, for two strangers, this kid was being pretty open and honest. However, he looked starved, tired, and injured. What more could you he do? That attitude could change after he got some decent treatment, the first in a while… wait a second.

Ghetto spoke what he was thinking: “So, kid, you wanna come with us? There's more walkers showin’ up, and I gotta get home to convince Nick to stitch me up. Again. You coming with, or nah?”

The kid swung out of Nick’s arms and latched himself to Ghetto in an instead, nodding violently up and down. His leg—the one with the cut—was trembling horribly, and looked to be only a few seconds away from giving in. Nick pulled himself up and stretched as Ghetto picked the boy up and held him to his chest, angling away from his head from the corpses that littered the street. Man, something was gonna have to be done about that. They were starting to smell worse than usual.

On the long trudge back home, the kid fell asleep. Face buried into Ghetto’s chest, looking smaller than he had minutes before, tear-stains still lining his cheeks. How old was that kid? He must’ve spoken aloud, because Ghetto shrugged lightly, attempting to not rouse the boy with his bare movements. But, with his heavy footsteps, there’d be nothing he could do that could rouse the boy at that point. A few times Nick seriously checked if he was breathing, concern dripping down his neck and bad thoughts putting every hair there on end. He’d barely known the boy _but_ shit, there was no way this kid was older than seven. He couldn’t help but feel worried for him.

Ghetto was still bleeding red-defiance from his chest and it was starting to worry Nick. It didn’t seem to be bothering him much—yet, but one shouldn’t be dealing with that for a prolonged amount of time, added on with the solid ten minutes it took them to route a way back to the House, as they’d dubbed it. But, pronounced with a much higher sense of dignity, as those things were.

The two near collapse into the house, not bothering to shove the shitty barricade in front of the door. Damn, that thing needed to be upgraded. Ghetto dropped the kid onto the couch as gently as possible, stripping off his coat and throwing it over him. Then, much to Nick’s surprise, stripped off his shirt completely and threw it to the side. His mouth was very dry as he watched Ghetto swipe away the blood again, only for it to come back thicker.

“Alright, goddammit, you need to hold pressure to the wound.” Nick covered the room and picked Ghetto’s shirt off the ground, pressing it against his wound. If he wanted to strip down, then Nick was allowed to do what he liked with the shirt. His house, his rules. Wait, shit, that sounded wrong. He had to stifle an embarrassed cough when Ghetto pretended not to roll his eyes. “Like—like this, dumbass. Ghetto, my eyes are _up_ here you don’t have to stare at my arm the entire time.”

“Very funny,” Ghetto retorted. “How long you been holding onto that one? Few days? Weeks? Months?”

“Seconds."

“Oh, fuck off.”

Nick totally didn’t jab the shirt into his chest harder than necessary. Ghetto totally didn’t wince, then totally didn’t try to convince him fruitlessly that he didn’t wince. It was a totally dumb conversation, but at the end of it, Nick couldn’t help but grin.

“I’ll go hunt down some bandages, there has to be something like that in this house,” he said, removing the shirt from Ghetto’s chest. “Find a new shirt—don’t put it on. You’ll regret it if you do,” he added on as an extra warning.

Ghetto laughed. “Of course, I’d absolutely hate to stain a shirt with blood! Even a completely black one, which I am planning to get for that exact reason! What a shame it would be.”

Nick ignored him to go scavenge for some medical supplies, since, up until that point, the worst injuries they had been inflicted could be dealt with a hot rag and a very long nap while the other was forced to agonize around the house in boredom. He ended up with a long roll of bandages, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and an actual flesh-and-plastic-blood first aid kit, packed with anything one could need. That was all he managed to get before the long, dark hallway the bathroom he’d raided was too… too creepy to continue looking at and he bolted away and shut the door to it faster than he’d ever run from a walker. No wonder they’d explored jackshit; the rest of the house had hella bad vibes.

Ghetto was leaning against the kitchen island, half hidden from view. In his hand, he clutched a new shirt, indeed black, as he said it would. At least the man kept his wood. Nick stepped into the light and held up the supplies with a well-earned smile, and Ghetto whistled something high that sounded way too close to a wolf-whistle for Nick’s own comfort.

“This is going to hurt,” Nick warned, dabbing some peroxide onto a towel. “Stay still.”

“Don’t worry!” Ghetto said cheerfully. “I’m not going anywhere. I literally can’t. You have me cornered.”

He flinched so bad when Nick first ran the towel over his cut that he nearly knocked over the open bottle of peroxide. Yelled “Motherfucker!” so loud the second time that Nick nearly shoved the towel in his mouth, peroxide and all, to keep him from waking up the kid. The third time was the kicker. He snatched the towel from Nick’s hand, balled it up in his fist and, with a look of pure determination in his eyes, threw it halfway across the room. It hit the window and rolled down onto the floor pathetically.

“Alright.” Nick grabbed the bottle of peroxide. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but you’ve forced my hand. This needs to get disinfected, you piece of shit.”

And with that, Nick turned over the bottle of peroxide and poured some of it straight onto the cut, barely managing to catch the bottle when Ghetto attempted to backhand it away with a howl of pain.

“Is this what they teach in hell?” he hissed, eyes welling up. The cut was hidden behind white bubbles. Thank God for peroxide. Even if it’s kind of dangerous.

Nick tip-toed over to the peroxide towel, wincing when the kid twisted and turned in his sleep, and returned to Ghetto. “Absolutely,” he said while cleaning off the towel, “this is absolutely what they teach. The lesson after was called ‘How Not To Be A Pussy.’ You could probably learn a thing or two from that.”

“Bite me.”

“That’s gay.”

“You’re gay!”

Nick grinned. “I am gay, thanks for noticing.”

“Goddammit, just—just get this stuff off already, and put the bandage on. I want a shirt again. It’s fucking cold.”

He flinched again while Nick was wiping off the peroxide, but didn’t move much past that. Held his arms up uncomfortably as Nick unravelled a roll of the bandages and started wrapping it around his chest, only making comments to complain if it was too tight or making a snide remark about how he was shirtless and how Nick was acting as a “nurse”—which was kinda shifty for a man who’d just been talking about him being gay. When the wound was finally bandaged and disinfected (to some amount), Nick stood back and let Ghetto pull his shirt back on; the sun was starting to set in the sky, and it’d been about forty, forty-five minutes since they’d slouched back with the kid.

Speaking of the kid, he was starting to stir. Nick nearly jumped out of his skin when he yawned and stretched across the couch, blinking open his sleepy eyes with a confused tilt to his head. When things finally came into focus, both Nick and Ghetto were looking at him with concern and an equal amount of confusion.

“Who…” he started, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Who are you…”

It took him a second to finally come to his senses but when he did, Nick watched as the kid’s eyes widen, and he damn-near threw himself off the couch to press himself against the wall. In vain, he looked around for something to defend himself with and Nick winced as he remembered that Ghetto left the weapons the kid had been holding back at the now walker-infested sight. For a small island, it did have a lot of fucking walkers.

“What do you want?” he demanded, voice cracking high. “What do you people want? I don’t have… don’t have anything, really. Please don’t hurt me!”

Ghetto looked to Nick before addressing the kid: “Look, we’re not gonna hurt you. We’re the guys from earlier, remember? The ones who saved you from those walkers? Well, that was mostly me, since Nick provided emotional support, but we’re not going to hurt you. Again, we won’t fucking hurt you, kid. We aren’t sadists.”

The kid’s breathing slowed ever so slightly, but he wouldn’t peel himself off from the wall. “Yeah. Alright, I’m remembering now. You’re Nick and… Nick and Ghetto, right? Ghetto’s the one who fought off those things, and Nick’s the other one. Why did you help me? Did you see AK? Rose? Jim? Do you know anything else? Do you even know what’s going on?”

“Woah! Kid, slow the fuck down. We don’t even know your name,” Ghetto snapped. Nick could tell he was getting frustrated, and quick. “One, we are those guys. Two, we don’t fucking know who AK, Rose, or Jim are. Three, we probably don’t know anything of this ‘else’ you’re bullshitting about, and four, of course we know what’s going on! It’s not like we looked outside, saw the undead and were like ‘Right! Another fucking day at the office, it is. Wonder if Robert got my papers in.’”

“Well sorry for not realizing that you knew shit! AK always told me that people only help if they’re dumb or want something, so, what do you guys want then? Don’t know where my family is, so I can’t take anything from them, so like, what is it that you guys want?” The kid was delving into hysterics again, tears glassing his eyes. “Please. Just… tell me what you want. I know you said you weren’t going to hurt me but. Tell me what you want. Tell me. I don’t want to get hurt.”

Ghetto looked at Nick with such a look of bewilderment that for a second, Nick couldn’t tell if he was talking to his friend or a cartoon character. The things that the kid had said, frankly, were extremely disturbing and he was off-put by it. Whoever the hell this “AK” was (so it was a dude, not an inanimate object) had drilled some shitty messages into his head. Was he even qualified to look after a child? Maybe Nick shouldn’t be thinking about a probably-dead guy and whether or not he could probably care for kids.

“Can you tell us your name?” Nick asked softly.

The kid whipped his head towards his voice. “What?” he said, confused.

“You asked us what we wanted. I just wanna know your name, it’ll be less patronizing than calling you ‘kid’ over and over again, _Ghetto_.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Ghetto said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

“Jordan,” the kid murmured, head lowered. The dark curls on his head bounced with every movement, the hoodie still pulled down. “My name’s Jordan.” Jordan raised his head to look at them, chewing on his lip.

“You already know who the hell we are, so I don’t think that’ll be necessary. But, just in case, I’m Ghetto and that’s Nick the Amnesiac. He’s the demon nurse from hell who pours straight peroxide on wounds and laughs as you flinch,” Ghetto announced. Nick shoved his shoulder and he didn’t even move, shoving him back and laughing.

“P-peroxide?” Jordan asked, eyes going wide. He’d been creeping forward slowly as the conversation spiraled but shrunk back at that word.

Nick shot Ghetto a glare as he said, “It’s disinfectant. It helps clean wounds. Ghetto’s a scaredy cat, don’t listen to him.”

“I am not a scaredy-cat!”

“You couldn’t chill with me _barely_ brushing the wound with that stuff, you’re a scaredy cat. And I thought you were the brave and heroic knight, going out to fight all those bad, mean walkers while I stay back home and cry over whether or not you’re coming back. Like some shitty Hallmark movie,” Nick said with a grin. Jordan was cocking his head to the side curiously as Ghetto protested his Hallmark movie claims.

“So,” Jordan interrupted, startling Nick and Ghetto into silence, “if I did the—the peroxide thing, and, umm, chill, does that mean that Ghetto would be a scaredy cat and I wouldn’t?”

Nick smiled so wide it hurt. Ghetto groaned loudly, over-exaggeratedly. “Absolutely! Ghetto would be a pussy and you’d be the coolest dude on the block.”

“You don’t need to patronize me,” Jordan muttered.

“Don’t worry, he talks like this all the time. You get used to it.”

“Ghetto!”

“It’s true!”

Jordan rolled up his pant leg (blood was pressing it down to the skin and Ghetto had to run water over it to get the leg to pull off) and Ghetto scavenged through the kitchen for some food while Nick treated the wound. Jordan flinched almost as badly as Ghetto did, almost kicking Nick in the stomach several times, but he dealt. Besides, trying to clean the dirt and grime off the wound the best he could with a peroxide-doused towel gave him some time to think.

For one, he couldn’t keep freaking out anytime anything stressful happened. It was easier to get away with Ghetto, who naturally took the brunt of fighting back, but now they had another person with them and that person was a kid. A child. Practically a baby. If he—if he didn’t want to be an absolute dick, he would have to stop freezing up all the time; wouldn’t be easy to remember, but it was something he had to do.

Secondly, Nick was going to get a notebook and force Ghetto to write “I will not swear” a hundred times over every time he said “fuck” in front of the kid. If Ghetto didn’t comply he would fucking know and goddammit, he would do something to make him pay. Nick didn’t know what yet, but he would do something.

Thirdly— _shit_! Jordan jerked his leg back and tears welled in his eyes as Nick scraped the towel over too roughly. Ghetto yelled at him a hundred times over as Nick apologized repeatedly and finished cleaning and bandaging the wound.

“I got food!” Ghetto announced as he stormed back into the room. By “food” he meant the junk and tasteless, canned stuff they’d raided from nearby houses and convenience stores, seeing as they were both too pussy to travel any further away but Jordan took it gratefully, crunching on some chips.

“You good, kid? Need anything more?” Ghetto said as he finished up. Nick couldn’t help but look over the kid and how bone-thin he was. “You look like a stiff breeze could knock you over. Nick does too but that’s just because he’s him.”

“I’m good for now! Kind of tired, though,” Jordan chirped.

“I can show you to a room you can stay it. Used to be mine, but there’s a room down that dark, creepy hall that we never like to go into that I could stay in. Unfortunately. But the rule is women and children first and you’re a child and Nick would kick my ass if I tried to move him from his room so my old one you go!”

Jordan gazed up at him wide-eyed. Then, promptly burst into tears.

“Shit!” Nick reached for him, but Ghetto was already scrambling over to the kid. “What’s wrong?”

“No one’s been this nice to me,” Jordan sniffled. “Not since AK disappeared, and that was a week ago! Also, he's kind of a douche, but that was just how AK is. Why are you two being so nice?”

Ghetto looked at him and then to Nick, who was chewing on his lip anxiously. “Because we aren’t monsters,” Nick said softly. “Get some sleep and we can talk about your shitty arrangements tomorrow. We’re all in bad places, but talking about that shit helps. Most of the time. Don’t know, it’s a suggestion.”

“Nick, you’d kick my ass if I even attempted to pry into your life. Well, the shit you remember,” Ghetto stated, deadpan.

Nick muttered, “I wouldn’t kick your ass,” and Ghetto gave a smug smile. Jordan wiped away his tears and laughed softly, hysterics kicking into his words like from earlier. The kid looked so small on the couch, bundled up in a too-big hoodie with chip crumbs on it.

“Yeah, that’s because you can’t kick my ass. Let’s go, J-Man,” he said, giving a hand to the kid.

Nick watched them leave, Jordan curiously peering at everything they approached. When they were out of sight, he leaned back and stretched all the way across the couch, taking up the room the two of them had occupied. God, it was gonna be weird having three people shoved into space where one of the rooms was off-limits and a hallway that he swore had some kind of demonic entity at the end of it, but they’d make due. It was curious how Ghetto didn’t offer up the “bad vibe circumscribe,” which was a damn good name to have come up with on the spot. Maybe he knew something Nick didn’t. Or, maybe he was a paranoid fuck like Nick who wouldn’t go into a dim hallway, much less a shut room that had dust on its door.

“Kid’s settled,” Ghetto said, coming back down. “I’m gonna head out and try to find his shit. If it’s still there, after all. Dunno, he might have some weird connection to it.”

“Alright,” he responded. “Don’t die.”

“I won’t.”

The door slammed shut. Nick watched the sun sink lower and lower beneath the sky, painting it yellow, orange and purple as night pulled itself forward. Movement upstairs calmed down and eventually stopped completely. The sun continued to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I find comfort in the sound_   
>  _And the shape of the heart_   
>  _How it echoes through the chest_   
>  _From under the ground_
> 
> [Empire - Of Monsters and Men](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2lzxGcbz-g)


	7. The Sun Yells at the Moon as it Sets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (“That seems pretty shitty of you.” “It’s how I’ve survived, up until this point.” “Still.”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not uploading in two months here's angst.

NICK’S BACK SLAMMED INTO the bed a little harder than need be and the wind was knocked from his lungs, sleep shaken out of his head with a gasp and a startle. The book he left there the previous night dug into his back, hitting the side of his spine and dragged uncomfortable tingles down the entire area and it hurt like fucking hell. Reaching back and shoving it out of the way, Nick pushed himself up from where he was dropped and squinted through the darkness of his room. Well, half darkness, since light still filtered in from the hallway and set a warm glow over the room.

“ _Dude,_ ” Ghetto said. “That is cool as hell.”

He was craning his neck to look up above the closet nestled in the side of the room’s wall. Above it, right before the top of the closet hit the ceiling, in a small space a foot and a half wide—or shorter—was a painted sun. Yellow-orange with red flames decorating the outside as rays. Sinking into the closet with the wall around it painted in shades of purple and blue. All it needed was a pair of realistically-drawn sunglasses and it’d look like a professional kindergarteners project.

“Who the fuck lived here?” He was still staring at it, presumably wide-eyed and amazed. It was a pretty good damn piece of art, in Nick’s opinion, but the fact he had just been dropped from a several-foot tall height onto a hardcover book was souring his mood severely.

“ _Dude,_ ” Nick said. “Did you really have to drop me as hard as you did?”

He seemed to jump a foot in the air at that. “Oh, what—shit, you’re awake, Jesus—Nick you scared the shit out of me.”

Nick would’ve felt bad if it weren’t for the fact his back was aching like a bride’s heart at the altar, her “to-be” husband leaving her standing there with tears in her eyes and her maid of honor, an aunt she’s known her whole life, rubbing her back and whispering calming words in her ear as the crowd got restless. Jokes on her, the guy was already halfway across the world, stubbing his toe on the leg of a table as some sort of otherworldly karma to the girl he left at the altar that ached like _Nick’s fucking back._

Ghetto scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Oh, I did? Sorry, dude… sometimes forget how tall I am compared to…” He looked away guiltily, an awkward grin on his face. “ _...other_ people.”

“You can say me, it’s fine, I know I’m short,” Nick replied gruffly, rubbing the bruised spot on his back. At least it didn’t break the skin. As far as he knew, so far, however—scrapes sometimes don’t bleed until a little while after the initial fuck-up.

“Jordan’s short too,” Ghetto argued.

“Jordan’s a five-year-old, and I am a grown-ass teenage adult,” Nick said. “Those are two completely different things.”

“How can you be a teenager and an adult at the same time? Don’t those two like, contradict each other? Aren’t teenagers in their, fuckin’, teens while adults are… y’know, adults? I mean—aren’t teenagers minors while adults have graduated from high school? Or not. It’s not my business on whether or not some people have graduated.”

Nick cocked his head to the side. “Technically, wouldn’t eighteen and nineteen-year-olds count as both teenagers and adults? So, eighteen and nineteen-year-olds would be teenager adults. Adult teenagers?”

“Oh, good point!” Ghetto sniggered. “So, you’re eighteen or nineteen? You’re a baby, then? A senior in high school? Didn’t go to prom?”

His face heated up as Ghetto stifled cackles behind his hand. Very fucking funny. Nick didn’t even know himself whether he was eighteen or nineteen “Shut up, I went to prom. I had a prom. Probably didn’t go to it.”

“Don’t worry,” Ghetto said, crossing the room to stand closer to him, “I didn’t go to prom either, and I'm twenty. Never got to make it up, either.” Who said opposites attract? Neither of them had gone to prom, it was like a match made in fucking heaven. Similars attract. "Yo, is that a moon?”

Nick flipped onto his back (he had, sadly, forgotten about the dull ache that was still left there and winced) and looked up to the window. In the exact same spot as the sun, but on the opposite side of the room, was a moon, painted in purples and blues and whites with a black background spreading out from it like paint splatters across the wall and winding between the usual color of the wall—a pale, grayish-green. He’d noticed it a while back and spent more than one night staring at it as he tried to fall asleep.

“Yeah, that sure is a moon,” he replied. “Can’t believe I hadn’t noticed the sun. Who doesn’t draw a sun to a moon?”

“You didn’t notice it because you’re a dumbass.” Ghetto sat back onto the bed, dipping the mattress down with a soft tone. From the corner of his eye, Nick saw him stare up to the moon. There was a look that he couldn’t place—half-worry half-annoyance. Didn’t seem to be related to the painting fiasco, however. “I haven’t been in here, like, ever, so I didn’t see jackshit.”

“That’s fair. You think whoever had this room before was an artist?”

Ghetto snorted. “I mean, why would they be? It’s not like they painted on the sun and moon to opposing sides of their room and fuckin’, did art stuff that makes them look pretty and good. I wonder what you would call someone who liked to paint shit onto their walls. Maybe something with an A?”

Nick groaned and rolled onto his stomach, shirt riding up his back. “That poor artist probably got choked out by a zombie or some shit. They’ll never get to draw aesthetic suns and moons on walls ever again.

“That’s hot.”

“You’re gross.”

Nick reached over and shoved Ghetto’s shoulder, not moving him an inch. Ghetto shoved him back, a little harder than necessary, damn near pushing him off the bed. (“Sorry.” “Fuck off, you’re not.” “That may be true.” Something was off. _Is Ghetto okay?_ )

“Uh, hey, question,” Nick started, rolling back towards Ghetto in a puff of annoyance, “did you carry me up here? Well, I know you did, since I can’t levitate, but—okay, uh, let me reword my question: why did you carry me up here? Did I fall asleep on the couch?”

Ghetto’s leg forced underneath his own as he stretched out across the bed, nearly kicking Nick off again. He lifted his other so it didn’t get rammed by his foot as well and then relaxed again, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling digging into his leg as Ghetto propped himself back up on his elbows and looked at him. Nick was still on his stomach and hair fell into his sight of vision as he met his eye.

“Yeah. I tried to hunt down anything left of Jordan’s shit, came back, and you were passed out on the couch. Well, I didn’t notice an hour or two until I got back, so it’s like ten now, but I nearly shattered something on the ground and you nearly fell off the couch and I thought, ‘Hey, that doesn’t look comfortable,’ and boom here we are just two guys being dudes,” he said. “It’s pretty damn chill in here.”

That was sweet of him. On the wall behind him, a rose was painted, barely visible behind his shadow and the dark room. “Hey, look, there’s another painting—” Ghetto turned his head to look at it and he rolled his eyes.

“This dude could’ve left at least an inch of his room unpainted. Left some room for other people to carve their initials into the wall, or something,” Ghetto scoffed, brushing his hand against the wall and swearing loudly when his knuckles knocked into it a little too hard. Red and green. The leaves spread further than the splatters up near the moon.

Nick shifted onto his knees and dragged himself towards it, flopping down next to Ghetto. He ran a nail along the outline of the rose and only winced slightly when the beginning edge of a hangnail got caught against the wall and ripped away from his nail hard. The paint chipped off onto his finger and red flakes coated the edge of it.

“I could do better,” he muttered, half to himself. It was true—this design looked old, and the thin, black lines to distinguish between the individual petals of the rose looked ugly against the red. It would’ve worked better with a darker red, or a white.

Ghetto snickered. “Sure, as if you could do better.” _Actually, I could. I was just thinking about it, after all._ “How many more little portraits do you think are scattered around this house?”

Nick pulled back. “This is probably the only room. I haven’t seen anything else.”

“Yeah, but you sleep in the room every night, and even you were surprised at the sun, so there totally could be other paintings. I could prove it to you right now if I wanted,” he argued, stretching back across the bed. Nick pulled away from the painting and stared down at him, brows furrowed. “I totally could! Don’t give me that look. And, even if I couldn’t, I’d just draw something shitty myself and claim I had found it and totally wasn’t lying about the origins of said shitty drawing.”

“What, would you use colored pencils and sharpie to draw it in? Hunt down some paints? Use blood to draw on the wall? I don’t think there are any paints in this house.”

“Shut the fuck up, again, the _sun._ There totally could be paints in this house that we just missed or something.”

Nick glared at him, then muttered, “Yeah, totally, and there could be an entire room we missed because it was hidden behind a Scooby Doo-esque secret portrait in the main hall. Just admit I’m right so we can move on with our day—well, night.” His leg was caught around Ghetto’s who, when he tried to move, got stuck halfway through, scowled at his leg and then Nick before giving up and resuming his previous position. It wasn’t comfortable for him, either, but he didn’t really want to move and actually have the possibility of Ghetto tearing apart the entire house looking for paints to try and prove him wrong. It could be funny, but it could also wake up Jordan, and that _idea_ wasn’t one he was fond of. Waking up Jordan when it seemed like that kid hadn’t slept properly in a month was the last thing on Nick’s agenda, thank you very much.

“I can’t even look for them now. You know why, Nick? You wanna know why? Because I’m trapped. You son of a bitch, you’ve trapped me under your skinny, twink leg and now I can’t move,” Ghetto drawled, looking up at him with a faux-serious face (it seemed forced in a way. Nick worried). “Jordan will come in here and see me, trapped, and will have no other choice than to kill you since he obviously likes me better.”

“Where did Jordan killing me come from?”

“I don’t wanna think too hard about it. It just happens.”

He pulled his leg away from Ghetto’s. “Kinda wild, isn’t it?” Nick mused. “We dealt with… whoever that guy from before was, then ran into Jordan. Kinda… kinda forgot that other people could live around here. It just feels like it’s us, in some… post-apocalyptic hellhole, y’know?”

“Yeah.” Ghetto didn’t meet his eye, turning his head away to stare up at the sun. Ironic, almost, with night already fallen and the moon a thin sliver in the sky. “Fucking—ugh, whoever that guy was is right. More like whatever that guy is, fucking weirdo. If he comes around again, I’ll most definitely be dealing with him. Or getting both of us out of here—I guess all three of us now. Jesus, bad situations really do bring out the worst in people.”

Nick sat back on his legs. He could catch his expression at an angle from here—face thinned, mouth a line. Arms propped over and around his head didn’t stop a weary air of couldn’t stop a seed of discomfort from worrying it’s way into Nick’s chest, blooming. He tugged his bottom lip with his teeth, not hard enough to bleed, and tried to stow the look of concern he could already feel crossing across his face. “Hey,” he said softly, reaching out a hand, “Ghetto, are you okay?”

His hand got batted away. “Y-yeah, I’m fine, Nick,” Ghetto responded, eye straying away. He suddenly pushed himself up, startling Nick, and swung a leg over the side of the bed. “I got some things I need to finish up before I go to bed. You should to get to bed yourself,” he said, crossing the room in long strides to get to the half-creaked open door, dim light fading in that illuminated the bare turn downwards of his mouth.

There was something in the turn of his shoulders, the tense frame they were set, that put Nick on edge. A sliver of a silhouette against the dark that made his head pound and heart race over the speed limit (where’s the deafening bass of party music now?). Ghetto was most definitely not okay. Dull moans choired in the streets below, quiet enough to go unnoticed but loud enough to ring in the back of ears. He couldn’t tell what set it off—was it Jordan? Something Nick said? The man with the AK-47 and way too much time on his hands? Ghetto gripped the doorknob and pushed the door open and the light from outside fully illuminated his face and displayed one of the most genuine expressions of distress Nick had ever seen from him, shoved beneath nonchalant and casual displays.

“What’s wrong?”

Nick, sitting on the bed with his legs going numb beneath him. Ghetto, at the door, letting light betray any upset emotion he may be feeling. He wasn’t the best at hiding his expressions—or emotions in general. He turned his head slowly towards Nick, or was that just the result of everything slowing down? The light was a strange gold that didn’t seem like it should come from a flimsy lightbulb. Or any lightbulb in general, Nick couldn’t tell the difference between a flimsy and non-flimsy lightbulb. “If there’s anything wrong, you can always tell me, Ghetto.”

Ghetto shattered the illusion with the jerk of a head, leaving the light from the hall a dull yellow and the space between them several feet of floor and carpet. “Nothing—nothing’s wrong, Nick. I’ve just had a long day—we’ve all had one, uh, a long day, and I just need to relax.”

There was a forced smile on his face. It etched unnatural lines to the curve of his mouth and cheeks. “You’re lying.” The smile fell. “I can see it on your face.”

“Nick, it’s no big deal. It’s just—I’ve been thinking, and. We just need a day to calm down and relax. There’s nothing big or secretive or whatever going on, I’m just tired, and want to try and finish this day on an actually good note. Or something.”

Ouch. That hurt, much like a soft hit to the gut. Not hard enough to be a punch, not soft enough to not ache. So staring at dumb paintings and making jokes and swearing more than they probably should be considered at least slightly decent people (which they did in general) wasn’t a good enough note for him? Or was that Nick’s mind, spitting and laughing at him. Ghetto had been… off, for quite a bit of it, so there was something deeper going on. There had to be. “You’re a fucking horrible liar, Ghetto.”

“Fucking, _urgh_.” Ghetto ran a hand down his face, groan muffled from it. “It’s just—fucking, hell, Christ, you’re really making me say this, aren’t you? It’s just that: Today, you shouldn’t have followed me to the docks.”

“What?” Out of everything Nick was expecting Ghetto to say, that was most definitely not one of them, despite the already very short list in his head.

“I mean it!” Ghetto exclaimed, his whole body turned towards Nick again. “You shouldn't have followed me. If things had gone well, which they _usually_ do, I would’ve gotten whatever shit I wanted and headed home and you’d be there, safe, wondering where the fuck I went. If things had gone like today… well, you still would’ve been safe and wondering where the fuck I went. You should start thinking about yourself, and the shit you need to do to make _sure_ you survive. I already do that! You can’t keep putting others before yourself like I saw you do with Jordan earlier. This is the fucking apocalypse, it’s every man for himself, despite any connections formed.”

“I don’t put other people before myself!” That burned on his tongue. “And Jordan’s a kid, so of course the one time I do end up doing that it would be for him. It’s messed up not to help kids, and I don’t exactly see myself as a shitty person who kicks puppies and refuses to help grandma’s across the street.”

Ghetto gawked at him, then laughed harshly. “There’s a difference between not being a shitty person and still thinking of yourself! It’s every man for himself out here, stop lying to yourself, you know you put others above yourself. Instantly offers your home to a stranger with a gun you’ve just met?” Come on!”

“That’s just common decency! It’s selfish to think of yourself all the time.”

“In _this_ economy?” Ghetto said, taking a step towards him with his face a mask of exasperation and hands spread in what would normally be a confused, “shrugging” gesture but now made him look like he was mockingly pleading with Nick, hands closer than they would be if he was actually shrugging. “It’s common sense. I put myself above others, but that doesn’t mean I’ll help a person out if it would personally harm me. Too bad, at least. Like you and Jordan—completely harmless! Neither of you could hurt a fly, so I ended up fine and dandy and now have two people to chill with through the zombie-fucking-apocalypse—neither who get my stupid references to old zombie TV shows.”

“What?” Nick responded, confused.

“Since _I_ was smart, I was able to make friendships while still being cautious of myself. You’d throw yourself in the line of zombies, walkers, whatever, and break your fucking kneecaps at the same time for a ‘friend!’”

His face burned. Nick crossed his arms self-consciously over his chest since hell, that was pretty true, the more he thought of it. “I save your life and this is the thank I get?” he muttered under his breath.

Ghetto laughed for real that time, not a bitter, harsh version of it. “You didn’t save shit! You scraped your knees like an eight-year-old on a sidewalk in summer then nearly got shot while we tried to get out of there. I didn’t save your life, you didn’t save my life, we dealt with our own problems while helping each other. It’s not worth it to save other peoples lives if they can’t handle themselves,” he added as a bitter afterthought.

“Bold words from a man who saved a little kid for ‘no reason.’”

“We were there at the right time. He got the idea to come with us. For all he wanted, he could’ve stayed there and done whatever the hell he was doing before, but instead he got the idea that it would be better in a group, or whatever,” Ghetto explained and it didn’t sound like it was actually coming from Nick’s friend’s mouth, just some weird bullshit spewed by some apocalypse junkie with five guns in his closet. “Also, he’s a fucking kid and we’re not goddamn monsters like you said before. Jesus Christ. Those things I said before don’t apply to kids.”

Nick pulled his numb legs out from under himself, tucking them up against his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “Then who does it apply to?” he asked, wishing Ghetto would meet his eye.

“Whoever you need them to.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Sure, he was bitter, sue him! But Ghetto refused to give him a straight answer and the weariness from the day’s actions was starting to pull at his arms and chest. The dull light from the hallway was starting to hurt Nick’s eyes.

“It means exactly what it says on the tin. Look”—he dragged a hand across his face again, rubbing the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand—”if I can help someone, sure, I’ll do it, I’m not a jackass. But if they’re in a situation that could potentially fuck me up real bad, I won’t do it. Maybe try something from the sidelines, but I’m not stupid enough to get involved. It’s their problem—I don’t have to deal with it.”

“What if they were with you before? Or helping you before? You’d leave someone to die who saved your ass from a bad situation?”

“Yeah, if they’re fucked up enough. It’s their fault for being an idiot and helping me. Or coming after me. Like _someone_ I might know.”

(“That seems pretty shitty of you.” “It’s how I’ve survived, up until this point.” “Still.”)

“If you don’t engage in situations that could fuck you up,” countered Nick, “then why did you help me get away from the gun dude? AK, or whatever we could call him. I was the stupid one, since I apparently followed you when I should’ve been dealing with my own ass, sure. But helping me goes against all your ‘rules,’ or whatever you call them. Reasonably, you should’ve left me to deal with my own shit and gone your own way. You helped me. Why?”

Ghetto didn’t answer him for a while (in reality, it was probably a minute or two at most, but the light ticks of a clock in the back of his mind spun faster than they should’ve). Then, he said, head tilted down to the floor, only a few feet from Nick; “That’s different.”

“How the fuck is it different?”

“It just is.” In response, Nick let out a very loud, very exaggerated groan that even got Ghetto to roll his eyes. “Look, it’s hard to explain. Everything has loopholes, it’s just one of those things, y’know? I can’t explain it. Maybe just not to you.”

Frustrated, Nick said, “That’s it? ‘I won’t save someone who helped me since it might get me hurt in some way boo hoo oh look there’s some small twink who’s annoying and doesn’t even do anything to help me how about I fucking pick him up like some abandoned kitten and hang out with him or whatever.’ Stop contradicting everything you say! If you won’t help people, that should’ve applied to me too. Your argument doesn’t make sense if you don’t apply me to that logic too!”

“I don’t think you’re annoying.” It was the most genuine thing Ghetto had said the entire argument, the soft words took Nick back. “The abandoned kitten comparison isn’t half bad. I could almost imagine finding you in a small box in a back alley on my way home from a terrible day at work if it weren’t so weird. But you aren’t selfish enough to be a cat. The complete opposite, it seems. Since you apparently have no concern for your own wellbeing.”

“If I didn’t have concern for my own wellbeing, I’d be dead by now.”

“Well… with me here, I don’t think that would happen. You’d try and I’d pull some superhero shit and get us out of there.” There it was again! The contradictions from his apparent ideals he’d set in the stone of his brain. Fucking Christ, what was so special about Nick that he got a man throwing away all his personal rules for him?

“You’re doing it again,” Nick muttered, not caring if Ghetto heard him or not.

He squinted and contorted his face into an absurd look of confusion that almost made Nick snicker. Almost. “The hell’s that supposed to mean? What am I doing again?”

“The thing! The thing where you throw out all the shit you said before out the window for me, or whatever. You said you’d pull some superhero shit and get us out of there, but that wouldn’t make any sense if you put yourself above the wellbeing of others. What’s so complicated about it that you can’t even explain your fucking reasoning for what looks to be a very important set of ideals for you,” he said, voice rising to otherwise avoided high levels. He wasn’t a very loud person in general, but goddamn he’d scream for this if he needed. Nick wouldn’t. Jordan was asleep, he wasn’t a douche.

“God—fuck, urgh. I can’t explain it, okay? Blah blah, it’s complicated and shit, I just can’t explain it right now! Not to you, at least, it seems. Maybe someone else would have a better fucking word for it,” Ghetto snapped and, holy shit, this conversation was not going anywhere. Just looping around back to the same stupid stuff.

“Wow, thank you! What amazing clarification—I especially loved the part where you explicitly said you couldn’t explain it to me like it’s some big secret you can’t tell me about since I’m apparently not in your little circle of ‘People I Want to Keep Updated.’”

“You know what? I take back what I said about you not being annoying. You’re annoying as fuck. Why did I agree to help you?”

“Because, apparently, you can’t not help me, dickbag!”

Nick was damn near getting off the bed himself, pulling himself up so he can seem even slightly taller. It felt pathetic as fuck to be arguing with someone when you were shorter than them. Especially someone like Ghetto, who was a fucking giant.

“Now I’m kind of wishing that you hadn’t come after me. Maybe then, instead of having this argument, I’d be dealing with a gun freak who’s resorted to cannibalizing people in the apocalypse because he’s too fucking lazy to grow his own food. Or, hell, even scavenge for shit. I think the only reason I haven’t punched you yet is because you’re a fucking amnesiac, didn’t get anything from the first week of hell.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re damn lucky you weren’t around for the chaos that went down there. After seeing a few deaths, you get desensitized, but it’s still absolute shit. Again, you’re fucking lucky for not having to experience that.”

“So, basically, you’re allowed to be a tool because you saw people fucking die, and I’m not allowed to argue against your bullshit ideals because I didn’t.”

“That’s the thing!”

“You’re really a jackass, you know that?”

Neither of them noticed the faint footsteps and then the sound of the doorknob slamming into the wall, after being pushed open by someone. Both of them did notice, however, the sound of someone clearing their throat and shuffling in discomfort. When they looked, Jordan was standing in the doorway, looking uncomfortable and tired. “Uh, sorry to interrupt? But you guys woke me up. Is there something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Jordan,” they said in unison, then glared at each other for seeing as neither of them wanted to do anything together at the moment.

The kid looked rather skeptical. “Are you sure? It didn’t sound very good. I just woke up, so I didn’t catch much of it, but it seems like something is probably wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong, Jordan,” Ghetto echoed, crossing the room to the kid and shooing him out. “It’s just a little argument, nothing that can’t be fixed. I guess. You should head back to bed, nothing’s wrong.” He shot a glare at Nick. “You and Nick should head to bed. I still got some shi—stuff I need to do.”

The kid left without much protesting, still anxiously glancing between Ghetto and Nick. Poor kid. Got saved from zombies (by someone who apparently would let someone die in cold blood, which, personally, made zero fucking sense to Nick) then had to deal with his two saviors arguing like parents getting a divorce while their kid looks on, scared and afraid since they never had to deal with that shit before now except for the argument here and there because, honestly, if parents are divorcing, they’ve yelled at each other before at least once!

“You should really think about whatever shit you choose to do,” Ghetto said from the doorway, startling Nick out of his head. The door was half-closed, Ghetto between it, his hand wrapped around its edge. “I don’t wanna see you get hurt. Or, worse, die.”

“I thought the ‘worse’ was gonna be you dying."

Ghetto slammed the door shut without a word.

Instead of kicking off his shoes and getting into something comfortable for sleep, Nick fell back on the bed and had to restrain himself from screaming. _Fucking Ghetto and his fucking dumb morals or whatever the shit…_ The dark ceiling stared back down at him. The sun and moon painted on the walls seemed to be laughing at him, going from fun things to poke at to an argument of great proportions. Fine, great, thanks, painted sun and moon! You two are real kind. Arguing with Ghetto made him feel like absolute shit, which was just the best, wasn’t it? They, honestly, were just brimming for a fight like that. You can’t stay with the same person for a week or two with the tensions so high they’re skimming the roof without someone cracking. And with the introduction of Jordan? Fucking hell. Nick let a loud groan that he stifled with his arm. His binder was uncomfortable, and the rational side of his brain was telling him to pull it off and head to bed, but the little bitch baby side of his brain was telling him to stay in bed and sulk. He listened to the little bitch baby side of his brain.

Nick didn’t sleep that night. Instead, watched the ceiling and listened to Ghetto walking around downstairs until everything went silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Honey, the party, you went away quickly_   
>  _But oh, that's the trouble with ticking and talking_   
>  _I lick the ice cube from your empty glass_   
>  _Oh, we've stayed much too late_
> 
> [The Party - St. Vincent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9L3D1w8KcY)


	8. i don't think things through (i never get time)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It tasted like gunpowder and felt of ozone and smelt like rain and Nick cringed, feeling like the calm before the storm as Ghetto scanned him with narrowed eyes. Like he was accessing a snow pile in the middle of the road and wondering whether or not to leave it be and find a way around, or plow into it at a hundred miles per hour, the outside of his car looking like a Seattle snowstorm and get an icicle through his bumper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you're wondering how I got into this situation--well, I promised myself I wouldn't pull another "month without updating." THEN I got sick! Welcome to my life, and how I learned to scream while writing because the chapter ended up 3000 words longer than my chapter average of 5000 words!

NICK SAT ON THE EDGE OF THE WINDOW, LOOKING outwards to the backyard. It was a dangerous game, sitting so balanced on a sill, but the movement was tuned into him. It was easier, seeing as how thin he was (Ghetto could completely cover his hand with his own, and constantly liked to poke jokes about it) but that didn’t make it any less of a challenge in every definition of the word. Challenges can be easy, hard, medium, whatever—but they cannot be any less of a challenge. And this sure did feel like a challenge, huddled up against the cold window with his legs pulled to his chest and foot half-dangling off the edge of the sill.

In reality, there was nothing particularly special about being able to fit oneself onto a windowsill. Just a small bragging right when there was nowhere left to sit. Or maybe a right of flexibility, being able to contort your body in any way you need to perch upon your throne.  _Yeah, this sure as hell is a throne,_  Nick thought to himself.  _It’s a throne and I’m the king of being a bitch._

It had been six days since the argument. Neither of them had gotten better, both of them had gotten worse, tensions going through the roof. They hadn’t managed to stop being bitchy enough to get in one proper conversation without throwing some petty remark or snide comment about something or the other. It was getting bad enough that Jordan was starting to see some things, but they still kept it pretty under wraps and away from him.

Up until recently, Jordan hadn’t noticed jack. Was content with the simple explanation of them talking over a few things—and, if he was being honest, he seemed relieved with that answer. So Nick and Ghetto were doing their best to keep it away from the kid. Tried to force genuine smiles around each other whenever he was around despite how bad Nick wanted to throw another thing about “it’s complicated” at Ghetto. (He was so close to making a joke about high school relationships. So close.) The kid must’ve had at least somewhat stable parents growing up, to not notice all of this. That, and… well, he was still pretty young. Even if something was going on, there’s a chance he could’ve missed it. Like he could be missing between the two of them.

That was more than Nick could say about his own damn life. He could barely remember his own last name (Lynx? He was pretty sure it was Lynx), much less a middle name, birthdate, family names—he couldn’t even remember if he had fucking parents, much less if they were around before all hell broke loose. He was pretty sure his middle name had something to do with flowers?

At least the painted roses could be somewhat explained by that if the house even belonged to him or a family member. Nick couldn’t keep convincing himself that he’d never lived in it before. The mystery on who would have drawn it was still up and in the air; he had almost told Ghetto about the middle name connection, before remembering they were arguing and quieting down. God, it was fucking uncomfortable to be so heavily “ignoring” someone. Especially with Jordan constantly engaging them with something stupid he or Ghetto said that went on long enough for Nick to almost forget that he was supposed to be pretend-disliking Ghetto and the fact that neither of them had tried to fix their situation yet. He had stopped waking Nick up, too, which caused a whole ‘nother batch of annoyances.

Rain trickled down the window from outside, crossing paths with individual lines and splitting off into different little droplets. The fence strayed against the harsh winds aiding the rain in its path to destruction.

If it hadn’t been so “dangerous” to go outside, Ghetto would’ve gone out and straightened the fence days ago. But Jordan didn’t want him to go out alone, and Ghetto didn’t wanna be anywhere alone with Nick right now—and vice versa. Not to say that the wind wouldn’t blow Nick over and straight into a walker. They’d been wandering in and out of the yard, gaining numbers. Ghetto had to shove a desk in front of the backdoor to keep any zombie pals from knocking the door in.

Two days ago, they had an incident resulting in another desk being shoved up against the door and Ghetto nailing boards across it as well. Nick woke up to Jordan freaking out and Ghetto doing less-than-safe things with a handgun.

He got downstairs when all the fun was over, and a walker was dead, it’s face pressed against the window, leaving a bloody mess. Jordan’s lip was quivering as he pressed himself against the couch, a blanket pulled over his head and wrapped around his shoulders. Mud was plastered against his bare legs and reaching up towards his shorts—knee length.

Nick jumped the last six steps to reach the kid. Got invited into his little blanket fort almost immediately. “What happened?” he said, pulling one end of the blanket over his shoulders and head. (He hated how easy he could do it, next to Jordan. Was close enough to his chin to be worrying, and liked to announce how he was the tallest in his class, proud.)

“One of the freaks got to the door,” Jordan whispered as if whispering wouldn’t attract them. “I got scared so Ghetto went and took care of them. He told me not to look. I did anyway. He’s in the backyard.”

Resting his head against Nick’s shoulder, Jordan let out a soft sigh. His hair was shockingly damp, and his shoulders shook with shivers Nick could feel through his sweater  _and_  Jordan’s hoodie. He frowned. “Jordan, why are you so cold? Were you outside with him too?”

“He didn’t want me too. I wanted to see what he was doing. I was only out there for a little bit, I promise,” he said. Straining himself to listen, Nick could even hear his goddamn teeth chattering.  _“Only for a little bit” my ass. Why is he so cold?_  “OK, I might’ve been out there for a few minutes, but I wanted to see what Ghetto did. You guys never let me help. I was curious.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Nick murmured, pulling Jordan closer.  _Curiosity killed the tiger,_  a morbid voice in his head said. But hypothermia sure as hell didn’t. Nick grabbed another blanket from the other side of the couch and threw it over their shoulders, for good measure, and Jordan looked pleased with the warmth.

“Yeah, but it gets boring! Ghetto won’t even teach me how to shoot a gun. I’ve forgotten by now. What if I get separated from you and need to protect myself? At least I could see other people do it and learn, maybe…”

There was this small hint of fear in Jordan’s voice that tugged hard on Nick’s heartstrings. “If you really want to learn, I’m sure Ghetto would teach you. He just doesn’t want you to hurt yourself. I don’t either.”

“But I was fine on my own for“—Jordan started counting on his fingers—“I was fine on my own for five days! That's almost a week. What if that happens again? I need to know how to protect myself. A-AK left me only because of a mess. He didn't mean to leave. What if you guys leave when you don't mean too? I'll be on my own again. I don't wanna be on my own again. What if you guys don't protect me? I don't wanna die. Also Ghetto looks really, really cool when he fights those freaks and I wanna be like him!“

Fuuuuuccck. For, like, a six or seven-year-old?… Jesus Christ. Nick shuddered and Jordan curled his hand around his.

“I'm sorry,“ he murmured.

“Don’t be,” Nick responded. “It’s not your fault for wanting to protect yourself. With the fuc—with the messed up world, I’d be surprised if you didn’t want to learn… something like that. Me and Ghetto are just hesitant to it because… well, you’re a child. What are you, six? There’s no way either of us really feel comfortable with the thought of a little kid being forced to defend himself from something like the ‘freaks.’ There are so many other components involved in it as well. The recoil could knock you over if you weren’t paying enough attention. Gun’s aren’t reliable. And it’s real fuck— _messed_  up that in a world that fought so hard for control over them, now they’re one of the greatest help against those creatures.”

He didn’t know where the words came from. Jordan didn’t either, because he blinked and said, “I didn’t understand a word of what you just said!” cheerfully.

“Me neither,” he said and ruffled Jordan’s hair. “Christ, you’re still cold? Pumpkin, go put on some clean clothes, you’re gonna get hypothermia with this.”

“But I want to stay here!” Jordan complained and kicked his heels against the front of the couch.

“Absolutely not, you’re putting on some clean clothes and I’m making you something warm to drink.” After that, he stopped complaining and went upstairs to actually put on some warm and clean clothes like a sane fucking person.

It was damn hard trying to avoid swearing during that conversation.

The generator connected to the house was pretty stocked up on fuel, so the lights and everything worked, but Nick was still hesitant to use the oven. Ghetto had been talking about repairing an older generator next door to see if it worked, but for now, all they had was this one. But, for now, they had a working generator as well as enough supplies to make hot chocolate, so it was worth it to use the microwave in that situation. Even if Ghetto got mad at him. Which he wouldn’t. If Nick was lucky.

When Jordan finally came downstairs, dressed in the exact same hoodie as before and nearly identical shorts, much to Nick’s dismay, he almost missed the cup of hot cocoa on the table for him, but when he did, he took a curious sip and his eyes widened to all hell and Nick strained himself trying not to laugh.

“Holy shit,” he said and goddammit, Ghetto. That one was going down in the personal records. “I haven’t had hot chocolate in months! Thank you, Nick.”

Jordan returned to his spot on the couch. “It’s like, just barely out of winter, when was the last time you had hot chocolate,” Nick asked.

“I licked snow off the ground.”

“I’m pretty sure that qualifies as a ‘not getting hot chocolate’ incident.”

“My mom felt bad since I was shivering really bad.”

He took another sip from his hot chocolate and shivered. There was this ugly draft seeping into the house and once again, Nick was grateful for his scarf/sweater combo. “Well, huh, I guess that’s a lot more common than I would’ve thought. At least this time you didn’t eat snow,” he said, twisting a finger around the fabric of his scarf.

“I didn’t eat snow!” Jordan protested, talking with a decent amount of hot chocolate in his mouth and accidentally choking on it. He wheezed and said, “I guess I deserved that.”

“Snow isn’t that nutritional of a meal. I’m pretty sure we have some like, extremely unhealthy sugary cereal in the pantry somewhere. Want some?”

“Please!” Jordan’s eyes lit up and he did the same choking on his hot chocolate thing again, even after you’d thought he would’ve learned his “don’t speak while eating and-or drinking” lesson already. Nick slipped off the couch and into the kitchen, again, and pulled open the pantry to, indeed, find extremely unhealthy sugary cereal in it (now with more marshmallows!). The pouring lined up with a very loud gunshot and Nick sighed, tearing his gaze away from the rain droplets on the window to see what Ghetto and Jordan had broken now.

Ghetto thought since they couldn’t go outside, and Jordan wanted to protect himself, that it’d be an absolute genius idea to practice inside of the house. But like, further away from the more valuable stuff so they didn’t break anything important. Didn’t stop some painting from falling off the wall and shattering, or from them almost busting a lightbulb and getting impaled by the falling glass. Twice.

“What did you break?” Nick called into the house. He didn’t know where exactly they were, but sound carried, seeing as he heard the gunshot as if it was right fucking next to him. At least his ears weren’t ringing.

“Nothing, Nick!” Ghetto responded, sounding much too guilty for a man who claims to have not broken anything. Nick sighed and unfolded his legs, slipping off the windowsill and traveling into the house to find, indeed, what they had broken: It turned out to be a hole in the wall instead of a painting this time, so thank god for that, but there was also a shattered vase on the floor and a cut down Ghetto’s arm. Jordan was pressed up against the wall and the culprit, Ghetto, had a gun in his hands. “Nothing” his ass.

It tasted like gunpowder and felt of ozone and smelt like rain and Nick cringed, feeling like the calm before the storm as Ghetto scanned him with narrowed eyes. Like he was accessing a snow pile in the middle of the road and wondering whether or not to leave it be and find a way around, or plow into it at a hundred miles per hour, the outside of his car looking like a Seattle snowstorm and get an icicle through his bumper.

Ghetto’s mouth curled into a smile. “We were just messin’ around, checking to see if Jordan can do anything with a gun.”

So it was the former. Thank, God. “‘Messin’ around’ usually doesn’t nail a hole in the wall. Or break stuff.”

“Well, technically, we didn’t purposefully break anything.” Nick cocked his hip out to the side and placed his hands on them, squinting in disbelief. “Okay, we did break something, but it wasn’t something important, like a lightbulb.”

“You are aware that the bullet could’ve ricocheted off the wall if it wasn’t thin enough, right? You are aware that you could’ve just shot yourself, right? Or should I have to spell it out for you?”

Ghetto groaned. “Yes, Nick, I am aware there are a million ways that could’ve gone wrong, no I am not apologizing for any of them since none of us got fucking killed. Good enough for me.”

 _The fucking swearing Ghetto I swear to god we are taking care of a little kid_ —Nick’s hands raised from his hips and crossed over his chest. “Better to be safe than sorry. I thought you said you weren’t going to actually shoot anything inside the house? Either one of you could’ve gotten injured.”

“I’m sorry!” Jordan piped up from behind Ghetto.

“Don’t be, it’s my fault,” Ghetto said and that, in all honesty, surprised Nick. He was expecting a joke or for him to say something first. But Ghetto beat him to the punch, it seemed. “I should’ve been more careful inside of the house. It is the only one we got, after all, with all this fucking wind and shit.”  _Am I going to have to get out a swear jar? Am I going to have to pull out an actual swear jar?_

“Well, at least neither of you got seriously hurt. Which is what matters most, in the end,” Nick said and straightened out his body. He wasn’t quite willing to let his arms fall, but that would come in due time.

Ghetto grinned. “Oh hella, we aren’t getting a lecture from Nick tonight! Good for us, Jordan, high-five!”

His arms fell. Jordan and Ghetto high-fived that ended in Jordan shaking his hand and wincing afterward. “Oh, uh, fuck, sorry, little dude.”

“Can we stop practicing for now? I think I’m done for the day.” His voice was shaking and fuck, it probably scared him. Ghetto must’ve gotten the same idea because he bent over to pat him on the shoulder and suggested that they picked it up tomorrow, or the day after, whatever made Jordan feel better.

“I don’t think I wanna shoot anything for a long time now, actually.”

“That’s fine, Jo. If you don’t want to shoot anything, I can just lead you through the basics until you choose to or not or whatever. We should get back to cleaning out your room, it is an  _absolute_ mess—how can one person mess that much shit up in a few days?”

“It’s not my fault! Everything in there’s confusing!”

“It’s a room,” said Ghetto.

Nick curled his fingers around his opposing arm, hovering awkwardly. The light above flickered and dimmed, darkening the room and the broken vase on the floor, bloodstained onto its sharp edge. That would have to be cleaned up by tomorrow, they all walked through this room, it was a hazard. Ghetto’s cut wasn’t bleeding but it looked red and irritated so Nick pointed and said, “You should really bandage that up.”

“What?” Ghetto turned quick.

“The cut on your arm, I mean. You wouldn’t want it getting infected,” he responded.

Ghetto looked to his arm. “Oh, right,” he said, picking at it with a nail. “Uh, yeah, I should clean this up. You left the bandages upstairs, right?”

“Yeah. Use hot water, too, if you can.”

“Sure.”

They stood facing each other in the room, Ghetto with a hand lifting to the back of his neck, and Nick being… well, Nick. Ghetto cleared his throat and laughed nervously. “Yeah, I mean, like, I wouldn’t want it getting infected in the fucking apocalypse. That’s like, the nightmare situation. ‘What happened?’ ‘Oh, I died from cutting myself on a vase by accident and then getting inanimate rabies. Long story.’”

Jordan stepped forward and looked between them with his eyes wide. Ghetto dropped his arm and shuffled on his feet when Nick didn’t laugh at his joke. “Is there something going on with you two?” Jordan asked, craning his neck to stare up at Ghetto with wild bewilderment. “Did something happen? What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” said Nick, at the same time as Ghetto said, “Nothing you need to worry about.”

Jordan furrowed his eyes. “Okay…,” he said, with hesitance in his voice. Nick crossed his hands over his chest. Ghetto coughed into his fist. He then arched a haughty brow in the direction of Nick, and he didn’t have the heart to do anything in response other than stand and sway.

* * *

Five days later and the Seaport sky was still the color of a rusted bullet, sunlight shining through occasionally and the damp maroon of the sunset being muted by the gray clouds less often. The rain still came down in tons, not pounds, however, and Ghetto was starting to get antsy, Nick could tell. They had traversed outside a few times, but the rain made it hard to see—an especially dangerous fact, with the walkers wandering around and everything. The generator was running lower and lower on fuel every day and they knew a house that had some but it was a good few blocks away. And things between them hadn’t gotten much, much better, but at least they hadn’t gotten worse.

Nick left his comfortable position of recounting the supplies for the millionth time, cabin-March fever getting to him. With a dusty taste in his mouth (it was from the pantry, fuck that thing) and a headache bordering on the horizon, he went to take his place at his favorite windowsill only to find someone already there.

Jordan rested his chin on it, a chair pulled all the way over to the window. It was still raining outside but, for once, Nick could see the neighboring house beyond the fence. The dusty taste was turning to a dehydrated sour and he regretted not getting something to drink earlier. Jordan slipped his arms out from under his chin and it hit the sill hard and Nick winced.

“I wish it was snowing,” he announced.

Nick didn’t know how to respond. Wait, actually—he did. “Jordan,” he said, as kindly as possible, “it’s March.”

“Yeah, but like”—he gestured hopefully outside—”I kinda wanted it to be cold enough so even if we were stuck here, we could have some fun outside or something.”

“The wind would’ve killed you three days ago.”

“No, it wouldn’t! Stop being so paranoid! Ghetto told me it was dying down and he doesn’t lie to me!” Jordan argued, spinning around in his chair after pulling his legs to his chest.

Nick didn’t say anything, only walked up next to the kid and leaned against the free section of the windowsill, wood, and grain digging uncomfortably into his back. His elbows would burn by the time he left this position. “You know,” he said, “I’m with you. I wish it was snowing, too. Then, maybe, we could have something less dull to look at.”

Jordan brightened. “Yeah! And we could make hot chocolate again since it’d be cold!”

“You would roll out in the snow just for hot chocolate, would you? What if I told you the microwave was unusable and you’d have to drink it cold?”

“…Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of hot chocolate? Isn’t it called hot chocolate because it’s hot and not cold?”

“Yeah, Nick, doesn’t cold chocolate defeat the purpose? And I thought you were an expert in hot chocolate.”

Nick and Jordan both turned their heads to watch Ghetto slip into the room, tousling Jordan’s hair on his way to, not the windowsill, like the formers, but the wall, an arm bent to lean against it. He kind of looked like a douche doing it. “Wouldn’t cold hot chocolate just be cold chocolate? Also, fancy seeing you here, Nick.”

“I live here,” Nick said, dryly. “It’s my house.”

“It’s  _our_ house, Nick, sharing is caring. Didn’t kids TV shows with mildly disturbing characters teach you that years ago?”

“Yeah, Nick!” Jordan piped up. “Sharing is caring! Don’t be a douche!”

Nick grimaced. “You’re like, five, don’t use those words.”

He didn’t even notice Ghetto slipping past Jordan’s chair until a hand was on his shoulder. Nick tilted his head to the side, looking up at him quizzically as Jordan pouted in disagreement on what words he should or should not use (or from him assuming he was five). Physical contact wasn’t weird but it was. Damn, after a week of next-to-none that wasn’t accidental or forced. “Sorry, Jordan, I’d love to discuss on your swearing habits but me and Nick have some shit we need to do. The rain’s finally cleared up, we need to get out, we needa  _do_ stuff.”

“We do?” Nick asked as Jordan said “You do?” at the same time.

“We do. Now, c’mon you small dummy, let’s go. Hopefully, we can avoid Hurricane Katrina two-point-oh.”

Nick couldn’t protest as Ghetto dragged him out of the house in only a baggy pair of shorts and a thin shirt like it was actually spring. Jordan waved frantically out the front door and giggled in the nervousness of being alone except that Nick and Ghetto didn’t hear it because he did it just low enough so neither of them would notice and get side-tracked from the stuff they actually needed to do. By the end of their little “supply run,” Nick’s wrist would have a permanent indent of Ghetto’s hand, he was sure of it. If he even let go at all.

He let go almost immediately by the time Jordan went back inside the house (they were nearly out of view, too). Then, he took a running start and jumped onto the biggest puddle he could see and nearly slipped and fell on his ass.

Nick couldn’t remember what Seaport looked during dawning spring, but he was sure it was better than this—sky a dark gray, the black concrete covered in dirt and sludge, puddles curving into the ground and digging little holes to fill with spurts of water. Weeds and plants were starting to grow in the cracks of the sidewalk, bright yellow faces staring up at him unblinkingly. Nick pulled his scarf up to his nose and breathed, trying to gouge some warmth from it. Water was seeping through his shoes and soaking his socks; it felt more like walking through a bog than walking down a damp road.

“This was a shitty idea,” Nick said.

“Hey, what are you standing in the street for? C’mon, we need to get going, sunlight won’t last forever,” Ghetto said, spinning on a heel to face him and nearly slipping and falling on his ass again.

“What are we even getting? What do we need?”

“Generator fuel—I told you about this, I literally just was talking about this. The generator’s running out and I cannot for the life of me patch up the old one.”

Nick breathed in and out, feeling the heat spread across his face. What he wouldn’t do for a warm house right now. Like the one they just left. Despite the constant drafts, it was still pretty homey for an apocalypse.

“I mean,” he said. “Why would we need fuel? It’s not like our generator’s running out quicker than before specifically because someone wanted to keep the lights on all night out of paranoia.”

Ghetto ignored him. Instead, he took another running start and jumped into another puddle, splashing mud and water up against his jeans. “Fuck!” came from above, before another, louder “FUCK!” echoed after it as he slipped and fell on his ass for real, getting mud and water up his shirt on the way down.

Nick exhaled for the last time and pulled his scarf down. Almost instantly, he was hit by a wave of cold so bad he was tempted to pull his arms into his shirt and stay there, curled up. But Ghetto was cursing too loud for comfort and they hadn’t seen a single walker in the time between them leaving the house. His footsteps were quiet as he walked over to Ghetto.

“Here, you dummy, let’s get going,” Nick said, offering his hand out to him.

Ghetto sized it up, then grabbed his hand and pulled Nick down as hard as he could.

He yelled in surprise and landed next to Ghetto, water swarming to soak through his shirt. His cheek hit the ground hard and when he pulled himself up to his knees, he could feel something dripping down it but Nick couldn’t tell if it was water or blood.

“What the fuck?” he squawked as Ghetto sniggered. “What was that for?”

“It’s equality,” Ghetto said while spreading his arms out in a wide sweep as if that completely justified his explanation, “you know? So, instead of just me being cold and miserable, we’re both cold and miserable.

“It’s stupid.”

“Well, you’re stupid too, since you’re the one still on the ground.”

Nick scrambled off of the ground and, this time didn’t offer his hand to Ghetto. Instead, he watched him try to get up and almost fall again before finally standing upright, walking as carefully as possible away from the slippery spot. Which, to be honest, was nearly everywhere, but that one area was pretty bad. He couldn’t help but smile when Ghetto gave him a double thumbs up with muddy jeans. His shirt was just as bad.

The house Ghetto had in mind for their Fuel Adventure™ (Ghetto came up with the name after catching Nick from meeting an unfortunate end on a piece of metal sticking out of a bent-over streetlight. It still flickered yellow) was tall, orange, and ugly as hell. The second story windows were shattered but the first story ones weren’t, kept in prime condition. Ripped-off shingles lay scattered around the yard and Nick wondered who—or what—the hell would’ve done that. “I found this while getting Jordan’s stuff,” Ghetto explained. “Was in the garage. Had a shitton of it, too. I think the guys here before might’ve been arsonists.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“I know, right,” he responded and went to go kick down the door.

It wasn’t locked, and he nearly tripped over his own feet when it slammed open and hit the inside wall of the house. Nick watched him brace himself on the wall, wheezing in what was either nervous laughter or anxiety.

“Good going,” he said to Ghetto.

“Fuck off.”

Nick gasped as they entered the house. Curtains were ripped up and furniture was smashed and splintered all over the ground, sleek wood impaling the walls. A huge gash was torn into the ground and pale shavings were littered around all over it. “Why did you come into a house like this? What inspired you to come into a house like this?” He was pretty damn sure that was a burn mark on the ceiling.

Ghetto didn’t answer him. Instead, he stepped over a flipped table and made a face.

“Seriously, why did you come here?”

“I got really bored. And I swore I saw something in the windows and wanted to check it out! Nothing was there, anyways, or you wouldn’t be getting me within a mile of this fucking house,” Ghetto said.

“Ghetto, we live within a mile of this house.”

Nick kicked a board out of a way and hissed in pain when it didn’t move, instead choosing to stay a solid force for him to stub his foot into. “You really seem like you have some sort of death wish.”

The only way towards the garage was over the table Ghetto stepped over. Nick, being a foot shorter than him, couldn’t just casually step over it so instead he got hauled over by Ghetto and nearly cut his leg open on a nail sticking out the top.

The hall wasn’t as bad as the front room, but “R WAS HERE” was graffitied onto one of the walls in what looked suspiciously like blood. Or just really, really dark red spray paint. It had a weird dripping effect that made Nick shudder and feel like he was in a Halloween haunted house. Other than that, the only messed up thing about the hall was charred black patches on the ground and a boarded-up window. And, of course, the door to the garage but that was less messed up and more mandatory.

In the garage, of course, was exactly what they needed, leaned against the furthermost wall. It probably would’ve been easier to venture into the city and hunt down a place, but the suburbs were small and the city was packed building-to-building with walkers.

“Our generator feasts well today!” Ghetto said, pumping his fist in the air out of victory.

A loud crash came from inside the house.

“Or not,” Nick said, gulping.

Ghetto said, “Fuck.”

When Nick looked back into the house, from the garage, it looked much, much darker than before. It sounded like it came from the second story.  _The one with the smashed windows_ —Nick noted. That stuff never ended up well in horror movies.  _God, fuck, it doesn’t sound like a walker either. They usually don’t purposefully smash stuff._

“I thought you said there was no one here? Did you not search through all the rooms? Did someone follow us? Were they just not here when you checked last? Did you even go past the garage while looking?”

“Fuck, I don’t know! I got to the second floor but didn’t look too closely, it was weird up there. For all I know some weirdo could’ve been staking out up there and I walked right past him without fucking realizing it. Or, even worse, some walker coming to kill us,” Ghetto said, pulling a gun from the waistband of his jeans.

How did Nick not see him grab that before? Well, okay, it was kind of stupid to assume Ghetto would go anywhere around here unarmed, but it still shook him up enough. Was the safety even turned on?

“I’m gonna go check it out,” he said.

“What the fuck, no, we’re both checking it out,” Nick argued.

Ghetto turned to him. “No,  _I’m_ checking it out, because you’re unarmed and couldn’t hold yourself in a fistfight if half the world's population was dependant on it.”

“What happened to teamwork? I can distract whatever it is and maybe yell at you to not shoot if it’s a cat, like in the movies. I’m not just gonna stand around and do nothing while you try to go out on your own in there.”

“I went fuckin’ Rambo on zombies two weeks ago, I think I can handle one dude-slash-maybe-zombie who doesn’t realize we’re here.”

“How do you know he doesn’t realize we’re here?” Nick said.

“If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, just leave. Just leave. Don’t bother with the gas—you’re not strong enough to carry it.”

A dull clock behind them struck twelve, and Ghetto was gone.

Nick fumed. Sure, he was unarmed, but could he not hold his own, if it came to it? And back to the old “If I’m not back, leave without me” bullshit he was spewing that made the entire argument between them happen. Every man for himself, survival of the fittest, blah blah other shitty ideas that made no sense in the long run. How could he even leave without Ghetto? If Ghetto was dead, the dude upstairs wouldn’t be, and would probably hear Nick trying to get out.

Not to mention Jordan. He’d be devastated. And, if worse came to worse, he’d be left alone in that house, barely knowing how to shoot a gun or protect himself at all. The thing back on the street had been adrenaline—the kid broke down crying when he talked about it. He couldn’t take care of himself.

This was bullshit. “This is bullshit,” Nick muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair. “This is utter, complete, bullshittery-bullshit. Huh.” He breathed out. “What are you gonna do, Lynx, what are you gonna do…”

The thing he was going to do, apparently, was leaving the garage and try to scope out where the stairs were as quietly as possible. He swore he heard some footsteps from upstairs as he tried to navigate throughout the house; he probably did, but that was exactly what he was looking for. After nearly running head-first into multiple walls at least four times, he finally found the stairs, covered in carpet that didn’t at all look like it was stained with blood.

 _What the fuck was up with this house,_  he thought and not said, because talking over here might alert others to his presences and that was a grade-A way to get himself revealed and murdered or worse, Ghetto revealed and murdered.

The morbid thought of tripping and falling down the stairs and breaking his neck filled his mind. That wasn’t good, so he shook it out, hand gripping tight to the railing. If it squeaked, he could be fucked and not even know it, but it didn’t, so Nick continued to make his way up the stairs and (hopefully) to where Ghetto might be.

Instead, he was forced to duck down almost the second he reached the top landing. Peering around the half wall revealed the silhouette of a person that was too short to be Ghetto but still tall enough to be intimidating. He was pacing around feverishly—which Nick didn’t even need to look to know, he could hear his footsteps from the stairs, they were heavy. Under his breath, he was muttering to himself and switching from pacing to walking circle-laps underneath the house’s high ceiling to match the pace. The periodical fiddling and clicking were from the comically large gun he’d been holding with ease as he walked.

 _Ten bucks that’s the dude from the docks,_  said the nasty, irritating little voice in Nick’s head that also offered up the wonderful thought of snapping his neck from falling down the stairs. Thanks, nasty, irritating little voice.

Along the ceiling, there was a large crack. The side nearest to him looked like it could come down with one good hit. Dust spilled down with every too-heavy footstep.

Nick jumped as he spoke: “I know you’re there.” He wandered towards him. “Look. It’s annoying to hide all the time. Just come out and we can deal with this like educated people. I’m upset about the incident, but I’d be willing to talk it out. Which I, personally, believe is very generous, seeing as you were trespassing on my ‘area.’ Jesus—you can’t hide forever. I am getting less and less generous as time is going by.”

He pressed a hand against the half wall and chanced a glimpse again. The beige paint flaked off under his nails, bending and digging them into the wall, pain alerting him to the hangnail pulling back and ripping from his finger.

The man was standing to the side, only one of his legs visible, along with the left side of his body, silhouetted by an unidentifiable light source. From this angle, Nick could only see him as a light shadow.

Pressing forward revealed the light source; one of the broken windows. Nails were lining the walls to the side of it.

The walls had some more graffiti on them: “R + WAS HERE” sprayed across the wall, the second letter washed out.

He turned and Nick’s heart jumped up to his heart, ducking back to safety and biting his lip hard enough to bleed.

There were no footsteps this time; only a silence that grew as the minutes ticked along with the faux-clock in his head, mimicking the downstairs garage’s one. If he focused hard, he could hear it ticking and tocking, along with the heavy breathing that appeared to come from all around the house. It wasn’t Nick; he was forced to remind himself of breathing after his head started to spin.

A rusty nail stuck out of the floor not far from him, bent and scratched.  _Where was Ghetto?_  Nick wondered, testing it with the tip of his finger. Not hard enough to draw blood.  _Did he manage to get upstairs? Was the man even talking to him? Did the man know he was here?_

Ghetto had to be here. There was—there can’t—there was no way he wasn’t upstairs. Where else could he have gone? Any other ways of getting upstairs were non-existent.

Fifteen minutes had passed. Actually, eleven had, it took Nick four minutes to convince himself that heading upstairs was a good idea, another three to find the stairs, and the remaining four to cope with the unsettling reality of the “who” and not “what” upstairs, as they’d both wished, internally or not.

Nick couldn’t tell what was scarier—footsteps or no footsteps, pacing vs. a ringing in his head that popped up at the worse times.

“Fuck,” he breathed. More like mouthed, shaping the words but not speaking them outright.

A gun was tossed atop the half wall. Elbows leaned against it, heavy breathing, a head tilt away from looking down and seeing him. Nick reached his hand up and pulled his head down, curling up on himself and digging nails into his palms to keep from hyperventilating. The real thing keeping him from making any panicked noises was the fact that he could taste blood in his mouth from biting his lip so hard. Knees knocked clumsily into his jaw as they were pulled up to his chest and if the gun threatened to slip off he’d be dead.

The gun was lifted from its place and the man stepped away and Nick bit his lip harder to keep from sighing in relief. His head was getting light again. This time, he could hear the footsteps backing away to the middle of the hall again.

Fifteen minutes passed. The clock went off on his head.

He stepped back again and was joined by another set of footsteps before yelling and the clang of metal against… well, metal. The man’s foot slid against the carpet and the sound made Nick cringe hard.

There was Ghetto. Always right on time.

“The fuck?” the man said.

Something was thrown to the floor and Nick couldn’t tell if it was something important or a chair. He would check again if it weren’t for the growing dread burning in his chest.

“You were the one who tried to shank me! I feel like I should be getting equal for that, especially with you monologuing about how I can’t hide forever,” Ghetto yelled and, yep, that was Ghetto, if the reasoning of him being the only fucking person also in this house wasn’t good enough.

“I didn’t shank you. That was a proper knife, do you even know what shank means?”

“Jesus—of course, someone this pretentious would be the one going on and on about territory and ‘the incident’ and shit. Ever consider just, you know, letting me leave peacefully and not trying to claim land like it’s the eighteenth century over here? High school history was boring enough.”

Okay, wow, Ghetto talked a lot when he was nervous. Then, a gunshot. A warning shot, since no one seemed to be immediately injured, and they both backed away from each other. Ghetto, to the window, and the man, to Nick.

“Look who’s monologuing here. You seem to be quite the hypocrite.”

“I already get enough shit from Nick, don’t do this too, man who’s tried to kill me multiple times—”

“Who the hell is Nick?”

“—someone I need to get back to, along with Jordan, if those names would make you feel any sympathy for your fellow man. I am not armed! You knocked the gun from my hands! Would you kill an unarmed man? With people to get back to? Like a dog?”

Oh, no. Ghetto wouldn’t get himself killed, would he? If Nick wasn’t trying to focus on anything but the pounding in his head and fear in his heart, he wouldn’t have heard the sharp intake of breath at that. Fuck, he had to do something. Jordan would be devastated. His eyes fell to the rusty nail again. “You—”

Nick pulled his shirt down to wrap around his hand and ripped the nail out of the floor. It came loose easily, nearly causing him to slam back and hit himself in the face. Then, rising to his feet, Nick turned and threw it as hard as he could at the man.

It hit him square in the back. He started to turn. “What the fuck—”

Ghetto moved and got an arm around his neck, his other hand reaching for the gun and Nick watched as they struggled, clueless on what to do next as the man got a finger around the trigger and pulled and watched as the round slammed into the ceiling and as he craned his head to look up at it a sprinkle of dust came down than the bad part of the ceiling came down along with it.

He came to with raindrops splashing onto his face and Ghetto sprinting through the streets, arms wrapped underneath his chest and thighs. Then he was under again, pain splitting his head open.

When Nick  _finally_ came to—for real this time—he was in his bed again and the dip further down was Ghetto staring down at him.

“Look who decided to get up,” he said. “I didn’t realize a  _ceiling_ could knock someone out for hours. Please tell me you didn’t get a concussion.”

* * *

Ghetto left and returned a minute later with a glass of water. Nick took it with shaky hands and sipped cautiously from the glass. It burned back the bile rising in his throat and he coughed in surprise at the burning.

“Was I really knocked out?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“Yeah. Barely got out of there with my own head, too,” Ghetto said, returning to his little dip in the mattress.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Ghetto shoved him lightly. “I could’ve gotten shrapnel through my stomach if it wasn’t for you. One more word and that dude could’ve put a hole through my eyes just because he wanted me to shut up. At least we got outta there with our lives. And a mild concussion, in your case.”

Nick pulled his knees up to his chest. “I could have gotten us killed.”

Ghetto made a face. “So could've I. It was stupid, telling you to stay back, maybe I wouldn’t have been so stupid if there was someone there. He got me in the shoulder, you know? It was still bleeding when you showed up. I might have grabbed you and booked it, instead of trying to be some ‘hero.’”

“Don’t say that,” Nick argued. “You did way more than me—all I did was throw a nail. One that could’ve given me tetanus.”

“Jordan freaked the fuck out when I brought you back. Thought you had died, or something. We should have just grabbed the shit we needed and left.”

Nick took another sip of water, washing down the last of that nasty taste in his mouth. Tasted dry and dusty. They had a good damn generator—or, whoever owned the house previously had a damn good generator—but he wasn’t sure if it could last another week. They could stretch it to a week and a half if they tried, but there were three people in the house. That’d be hard.

Ghetto sighed, rubbing his head with a palm. “You know,” he started, turning his hand into a fist and resting against the knuckles, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Nick asked.

“For the thing from before. Before-before. I was wrong about some things, and the people I was with before you weren’t exactly the nicest people out there. Most of the time. Every man for himself was the norm, for a while. Hell, you’re the nicest person I’ve met throughout the entire ‘pocalypse, and I was jumping in and out of contact for the week, week and a half before we met. I still might not fully… agree with your logic, but mine was pretty screwed, so I can’t really say shit.

So, I hate to say this, but, thanks. You helped me out back there, even if it just a little. If you hadn’t done the exact thing I was preaching against, we could’ve both ended up dead, and Jordan would be left alone. And, I’m bad at this, but again, I’m sorry for doubting you.”

He tilted his head towards Nick, some ghost of a grateful smile on his face. He blinked in surprise.

“But  _I_ should be the one apologizing!” he blurted out.

Ghetto leaned back. “What are you talking—”

“I kept arguing with you! If I wasn’t so stubborn before, we could’ve gotten along, and we might have gotten the gas earlier, or sooner, or whatever. If it weren’t for me, we would be getting along. At least, if we died, we would die without any regrets. I’m sorry, I should be the one apologizing. I shouldn’t have challenged you. I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck?” Ghetto said. “You—you’re allowed to have opinions! You’re more right than I ever was, we don’t live in a fucking, dog-eat-dog world. It isn’t taboo to disagree with someone. It’s natural, for God's sake. I’m the one who stormed out all angry like, it’s not on you to try and shoulder someone else’s shitty decisions.

“But, what about—”

“Don’t try and argue. It’s not legally required to have the same opinions as me. God, even without that man showing up and ruining everything, I would have apologized eventually. I was the one in the wrong, even if we both argued. I can man up and say it! I, for once in my life, was wrong!” Ghetto reached over and rested a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Who hurt you?”

Nick leaned in closer. Ghetto moved his hand further back and rubbed it against his back. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“It means you seem kinda sad.”

“I’m not sad!”

“I know you aren’t,” he said, moving closer. Nick instinctively leaned into him.

“You should’ve apologized for pulling me down in the rain instead. I swear my hair’s still damp. If not, my shoes are.”

“I’m  _not_ sorry for that.”

“Dickhead.”

Ghetto laughed and knocked the now-empty glass off the bed as he crossed one leg over the other. “At least everything between us is settled now,” he said. “Jordan won’t go another day wondering if one of us is going to storm out the house in a rage and get ourselves killed by a passing walker.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t you thinking that?” Nick smiled.

“You can’t prove anything. Man, I just realized, we managed to hold a grudge for a damn long time, considering how much we know about each other. Do you always ignore near-strangers when they piss you off a little too much?”

“Look who’s talking!” he retorted, Ghetto snickering at his tone. “You were the one holding the grudge! I was the one who was too cowardly to confront you about it. And also kinda pissed, I guess.”

“We should get to know each other better. Have you ever played twenty questions?”

“We’ve been partnered up for almost a month?”

“Doesn’t matter. You wanna go first or should I?”

Nick snorted. “I still haven’t agreed to twenty questions. What if, instead, I wanna go downstairs and alert Jordan that I haven’t died before doing anything else? Does he even know I’m awake? Please don’t tell me you let him think I’m dead.”

“Of course not! I’m not a total dick. What’s your favorite color?”

“Why is this important? It’s green.”

“Oh, hell yeah. Where do you live?”

“Seaport—you know all these things already!

Ghetto cracked a crooked smile. “Ha, stranger danger. One of these days you’re gonna get yourself killed, Nick. When’s your birthday?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Larry, call a load of smoke in, I wanna lose a couple days_   
>  _We've probably never struggled coping but I never want to_   
>  _Promise again that I would call her, forget the time 'cause I'm seven hours behind_   
>  _It's probably good I didn't call though but I always want to_
> 
> [7 - Catfish and the Bottlemen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N14146Rv5V0)


End file.
